Every morning, thousands of office-goers in Bengaluru and Delhi circle blocks for 20-30 minutes hunting for parking, even as expensive multi-level car parking (MLCP) towers stand half-empty.
India has invested hundreds of crores in MLCPs under the Smart Cities Mission, AMRUT, and municipal budgets, but most of them remain highly underused.
Occupancy in many Delhi facilities hovers at 30-40%, Bengaluru's average sits around 30%, and similar low utilisation is reported in cities like Pune, Chennai, Ahmedabad, and other cities.
Experts say the deeper issue is a systemic subsidy to car owners at the expense of public space, equity, and sustainability.
Shreya Gadepalli, lead author of the Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation's 2024 Roadmap for Parking Reforms in Indian Cities, says the current approach is fundamentally flawed.
The solution, she says, lies in properly priced on-street parking and the removal of minimum parking mandates.
Some cities in India are now beginning to take corrective measures, such as banning on-street parking near major MLCPs and aggressively deploying towing fleets to enforce the rule.
The Shakti study recommends unbundling parking from real estate and shifting from minimums to maximums near transit hubs and corridors.
