WITH the commotion associated with introduction of parking fees at Damodar City as an aid to absolve congestion plus other issues as claimed by the owners, I in fact believe the charges are fairly imposed although the consumer council has a differing opinion.

Such charges would deter opportunist vehicle owners from unnecessarily parking while attending to errands outside the centre and ensure deserving customers have more chance of finding parking spaces.

Conversely, I do not believe the introduction of a parking fee has much to do with congestion, but rather associated with operational motives.

Congestion, though, is a real issue at the complex and coming from property development background, I believe this is so because of poorly planned entry and exit point which happens to be at the same spot. Perhaps a better option would have been to create entry and exit points at each end, so congestion within the parking area could have been minimised via smoother traffic flow. Ditto for traffic just outside the entry and exit point.

With imposition of parking charges, I don’t believe congestion issues will be solved especially during the centre’s peak hours.