The new parking space at Buddha Smriti Park. Picture by Deepak Kumar

Commuters to Patna Junction can soon forget parking woes.

A semi-automated parking system will come up at Buddha Smriti Park’s multi-level parking facility by November.

Godrej & Boyce Mfg Co. Ltd began work on the Parking Management and Guidance System on July 1. The new system can accommodate 420 four-wheelers and is being installed at an estimated outlay of Rs 1.40 crore.

Parking would become a lot simpler. Just drive your car into the entry bay, where an automated camera would photograph the licence plate. A screen there would indicate, by way of a map, a vacant spot for the vehicle on some floor. Screens at various points throughout the ramp connecting different floors would then guide the driver to the vacant spot.

Even no one will have to pay parking fee till exit. At the exit bay, another camera would photograph the licence plate, match it with the one taken during entry and calculate fee against duration of parking. The tariff has not been decided yet. “The contract was awarded to Godrej in June. They have been asked to complete it in four months. We expect the operation to commence from first week of November,” said a senior Bihar Urban Infrastructure Development Corporation (BUIDCo) official.

The facility will be a part of the Buddha Smriti Park Project. BUIDCo is the nodal agency looking after the shrine. The Dalai Lama inaugurated it in 2010 but work on parking facility and a museum got delayed.