Bhubaneswar: The Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited has initiated the process to come up with a parking master plan for the state capital to regulate the parking service while the municipal corporation has amended an important rule and decided to collect one-time fee for parking at multiple parking lots.

However, the parking services leave much to be desired since the civic body is yet to complete allotting the parking lots to operators that forces people to park theie vehicles at unattended lots.

"I parked my motorcycle at Ashok Nagar and went for shopping to the Unit-II Market. When I came back, the rear-view mirrors were missing. There were no parking operators at the lot that day," said Sumiit Sarangi, a resident of Unit-IX.

The problem was different with Saheed Nagar resident Bidwan Jena, who was charged Rs 5 for parking his motorcycle in front of an ATM. "I regularly use the ATM at Unit-VIII. I had never been charged parking fee before, but on Sunday, someone came and ask me money in the name of the BMC," said Jena.

Through the parking master plan, officials aim at developing a city level parking policy and another pan-city parking management plan. The aim of the parking policy is to guide development of planned parking facilities while parking management plan will take care of the existing parking scenario and suggest measures for improvement.

The municipal corporation's plan was to divide the parking lots into five different zones and collect a one-time fee for parking at multiple parking lots within the same zone in the stipulated time. The corporation has decided to implement it and hold a fresh auction of the parking lots.

The initial deadline to introduce the service was April 1. But since the civic body didn't get many takers for parking lots, the deadline was extended to July and spot auction of the lots has started taking place.

The civic body now has 76 parking lots, most of which are not operational now.