Bhubaneswar, Jan. 29: The corporation will shortly auction the newly created on-street parking lots and employ 'managers' on Janpath between Rajmahal Square and Vani Vihar to restore sanity on the busy road.

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation started the facility of free on-street parking after the civic commissioner and the policecommissioner returned from London in November last year.

They two had gone to study the on-street parking system in London.

In an effort to educate vehicle owners, the corporation has deployed some of its employees to guide cars to the designated parking lots.

The extreme left lanes on both sides of the road between Rajmahal Square andVani Vihar has dedicated for on-street parking.

The areas have been marked in white to facilitate parking of vehicles.

However, the tendency to violate traffic discipline and road rules has affected the success of the on-street parking plan.

The corporation has, therefore, planned to rope in a private party to manage the on-street parking system.

Civic body commissioner Krishan Kumar said the corporation would auction this space, and the private party would be known as the 'parking process manager'.

'They would streamline the parking and collect fees from car and other vehicles for park in the area. The tender process will start shortly,' he said.

Sources in the corporation said smart cards would also be introduced for car owners, who would use the new parking system.

Besides, the parking process managers would use hand-held machines to collect fees.At present, two parking lot operators have been using this machine on an experimental basis.

An official said the machine would help avoid controversies between the parking lot operators and vehicles owners.

There have been allegations at certain places that even if people park their vehicles at the designated lots for less than the stipulated five minutes, parking lot operators demanding fees from them.

A corporation official said the use of hand-held machines would end such controversies. 'The operators would charge fees from those who park their vehicles for more than five minutes at the designated zone,' he said.

In another development, the civic body has found that many existing parking lots could not be auctioned this year, as a few parties put their bids in a tender floated last month.

There are 30 parking lots at various places in the city, and the corporation has recently added 25 more to the number. Of the 55 parking spaces, only 25 could be auctioned while others remained un-auctioned.

It was also found that out of the 30 previously existing parking lots, around 20 remained unsold.

Sources said the operators, who were managing the parking lots earlier, showed no interest in taking part in the bid or renewing their licence after they completed one year.

An official said that most of the parking lots were auctioned between Rs 50,000 and Rs 11 lakh depending on the location and vehicular activities in that particular area.

While the civic body stresses upon the facility of on-street parking, several of its existing parking lots, where mostly the two-wheelers are parked, could not be sold out in a recent auction.

The parking lot operators alleged that availability of free space around the designated parking places affected their business. Vehicle owners tend to park their two-wheelers and four-wheelers at the free space around the designated parking lots.

This not only affects the revenue collection, but parking lot operators also fail to collect their tender-biding money. A parking lot operator said the corporation's instruction to collect a particular amount as fee, which was much less in comparison to parking lots under private ownership, affected their business.

'We have been demanding to raise the parking fees or ban parking in other places. But, the corporation is yet to take action on this,' said parking lot manager Narottam Jena.

A corporation official said they would study the reason behind such poor turnout in the parking lot tender.

'The private party that would be deployed for the on-street parking will survey other spots suitable for such parking. Besides, the private body will also find out the reason for the poor turnout at the existing parking lots,' he said.

The official said that as the corporation had raised user fees, the parking lot operators would be able to recover their money they had spent on winning the tender.