Cuttack, March 26: The civic body has put up 30 paid parking areas across the city for auction with a total base or reserved price of Rs 20.23 lakh for the next fiscal.

"We have already received the tenders for the paid parking areas. The allotment prices will be finalised after the tenders are opened tomorrow," head of standing committee for licence and appeal Bikash Ranjan Behera told The Telegraph today.

The allotment price will be the highest bid amount quoted by the participants of the tender. A sub-committee of the traffic management committee of police had identified the areas for development of parking places.

The Cuttack district magistrate had also notified them as parking areas, which were developed by the Cuttack Municipal Corporation more than a year ago.

"The parking areas were developed to ease traffic congestion at prominent thoroughfares in the city. Many of them have come up at commercial and prominent market areas. The parking problem led to traffic congestion in these places," said deputy commissioner of police, traffic department, Pradip Kumar Dalai.

A corporation official said that after finalisation of the tenders, the highest bidders would be authorised to collect Rs 5 from four-wheelers, Rs 2 from three-wheelers and Rs 1 from two-wheelers from their respective parking areas.

The highest reserve price or base price of Rs 4 lakh has been fixed for the Nayasarak parking area.

At present, commuters who park their four-wheelers and autorickshaws on both sides of Nayasarak - the stretch between Petrachak and Balu Bazar - pay Rs 10 and for scooters and motorcycles the charge is Rs 5. Commuters parking their cycles on the road pay Rs 2.

Nayasarak is one of the biggest commercial zones of the city with more than 250 shops ranging from pharmaceutical, cloth and paper wholesalers and garments and jewellery stores intermingling with residential buildings.

Following directions from Orissa High Court to ease congestion at Nayasarak, the traffic police had introduced one-side parking on alternate days. One-way traffic was also introduced following high court order on the Balu Bazar side for four-wheelers and three wheelers. But the measures failed to ease congestion as both sides of the road remained occupied by four-wheelers, two-wheelers and cycles. Major parking areas put up for auction include those in front of Bombay Hotel at College Square, SBI main branch near the collectorate, the stretch between Satichaura and Aswini Hospital, in front of LIC divisional office at Nuapatna and in front of boat gate of Barabati Stadium.

Telenga Bazaar resident Pradip Sahoo said: "Before the development of the parking areas people were forced to park vehicles on the road creating traffic problems."