In the past 5 years, we have seen many "First time in India or Uttarakhand inaugurations and announcements".

Yesterday, another first of its kind event took place in Dehradun Uttarakhand.

The Uttarakhand Government urban development minister Madan Kaushik inaugurated city’s "first smart parking facility" and also the state’s ONLY such facility. The minister inaugurated the vehicle parking by parking a vehicle there.

The said parking started and run by the Mussoorie Dehradun Development Authority (MDDA), in collaboration with Dehradun Municipal Corporation (DMC) and Bridge, Ropeway, Tunnel And Other Infrastructure Development Corporation Of Uttarakhand Limited (BRIDCUL), has started mPark app-based smart parking at 27 spots on Rajpur Road under the smart city scheme.

There are some serious problems with the First Smart Parking in Dehradun.

The rates for the parking for a two-wheeler is Rs 20 up to an hour beyond which Rs 30 will be charged. For cars, people will have to pay Rs 30 for an hour and after that the charge will be Rs 50.

In simple words, it will be a paid vehicle parking managed by men, and backed by a mobile app to pre-book a parking slot. That apart the parking seems to have a contract based model (Private companies will bid for the parking contract).

In addition, the parking charges for two-wheeler and four wheeler are not in line balance with each other. For instance, when compared with the parking charges for a four wheeler, the parking charges for a two wheeler is quite high (Rs. 20).

In addition, the parking duration of just 1 hour for Rs. 20 and Rs. 30 is quite high. And not practical.

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