No end to traffic congestion

The vehicle park in Kandy, built at great cost, aimed at reducing traffic congestion by banning roadside parking, has not achieved its purpose. Hence, Kandy town, which is famous for its beauty and heritage, is now known for its appalling traffic congestion.

The Kandy Municipal Council (KMC) had signed a lease agreement with the Property, Finance and Investment Kandy (Pvt) Ltd giving the company the authority to charge for parking in the town. The company’s human resources and administration director J. Mandawala said two of the four floors of the park are totally empty while only half the space was filled on the other floors which can accommodate 250 vehicles.

“The agreement was to charge less for parking in the vehicle park and more for parking on the streets. We wanted to compel people to park their vehicles in the vehicle park in order to reduce traffic congestion,” he said. The company has faced obstacles in running the park and collecting charges for parking vehicles on the streets. Up to August last year, he said the loss was more than Rs. 66 million.

“We charge only Rs.11.50 per hour but the loss runs into millions as the park is empty,” he said. He said the businessmen in town who are used to parking their vehicles in front of their shops, do the same and even do not pay the parking fee. “They used to bribe the wardens and that’s why the Municipal Council gave us the authority to charge for parking,” he said.

“The main problem is that those businessmen are not paying the parking fees. They are united against paying the fee, it seems,” Mr. Mandawala said adding that according to Municipality bylaws, if a person does not paying for parking, the Municipal Council has the authority to take over the vehicle and release it only when the owner of the vehicle has paid all the fees.

“What we can do is to give the offenders the parking tickets. If they don’t pay, we can’t force them to pay or take any action against them. Only the Municipal Council can take action by implementing the bylaws”, he said. The KMC has so far failed to implement the bylaws, he said. “So, the present situation in Kandy is that people park in streets without paying for it, the streets are blocked and the vehicle park is almost empty,” Mr. Mandawala said.

However, the request for an arbitrator to look into the matter so far has not succeeded due to various obstacles.“We requested an arbitrator to look into the matter and ask the KMC to implement the bylaws but the Provincial Commissioner asked the KMC whether it is needed to appoint an arbitrator and obviously, ‘no’ was the answer,” he said.

He said his company filed a case in the High Court asking for an arbitrator to solve the problem but the KMC filed an appeal against it. “But recently, the KMC withdrew the appeal. Now we are expecting further action on the matter,” he said adding that had the arbitrator been appointed by the time the first High Court verdict was given, arbitration would have been started by now.

He said that it would take sometime now to start arbitrating as there was a procedure to follow. Kandy Municipal Commissioner W.A.R. Wimalasiri said that even though the Kandy traffic managing project was not 100 per cent successful new measures would be taken by next month.

“We would be gazetting the parking and no parking areas next month. Then, the traffic system would be much better,” he said adding that though the KMC was planning to issue the gazette earlier, some adjustments had to be made when discussions with the Police were held about the plan.

He said the new system would be implemented in the area not leased out to the Property, Finance and Investment Kandy (Pvt) Ltd. An arbitrator, who is a retired judge, has been appointed to solve the issues regarding the vehicle park and the parking in the area, he said. He declined to comment further on the issues regarding the vehicle park as the matter was pending in courts.