The city civic authorities on Thursday introduced a dress code for parking fee collectors.

A total of 1,500 fee collectors out of the 5,000 working under 41 cooperatives received blue-ash shirts and navy blue trousers, with the name of the cooperative on the shirt pocket. The parking lot attendants will not be allowed to collect fees if they are not in uniform from April.

“Motorists must not pay a collector not in his uniform,” said mayoral council member Faiyaz Ahmed Khan, in charge of car parking. Those who got their uniforms on Thursday will have to don them from Friday, he said.

The cooperatives are paying for the uniforms.

The dress code had been in the pipeline for about five years but could not be implemented because of pressure from the unions of the fee collectors.

The pressure eased when the Calcutta Municipal Corporation threatened to invite open tenders for the fee parking lots.

“The uniforms will help us identify unauthorised fee collectors,” said Khan. Though there is roadside fee parking space for 10,000 cars in the city, the areas are mostly not demarcated. Motorists face harassment and have to pay more than the scheduled rate even for parking outside a fee parking zone.