Here’s good news for Gurgaon residents. Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) has waived off the property tax for 45 commercial spaces and malls on MG Road and Sohna Road in lieu of free parking to the public.
The move came four months after the MCG decided not to levy property tax on commercial spaces that lease their basement for parking free of cost. It was done after reviewing the central government’s notifications on property tax for commercial spaces.
The step is expected to free up the service lanes, hitherto encroached by cars of visitors to the malls. People usually avoided parking vehicles in malls and office parking, and preferred to leave cars in service lanes.
The residents of various condominiums, such as Essel Towers, The Heritage City, can now enter and exit their condominiums with ease, as visitors to the malls can now leave their cars parked in front of the main gates.
The normal parking rates in all these complexes varied from Rs 40-100 during weekends. It was fixed at Rs 40 for three hours during weekdays, and Rs 60 for weekends.
Riddhima Sharma, a resident of DLF Phase II, which is close to the commercial complex First India Place, said, “If I have to just go and drop a cheque , which barely takes five minutes, why should I unnecessarily pay Rs 40?”
However, people are still not aware of the MCG move. The service lane in front of Grand Mall, on MG Road, was still seen encroached by vehicles yesterday.
DCP (Traffic) Balbir Singh said, “This move will greatly ease traffic. We have been implementing tow-away zones to clear the service lanes, but it hardly makes any difference. People continue to park their vehicles in service lanes.”
MCG spokesperson SS Rohilla said, “We have uploaded a list of spaces offering free basement parking on our website http://www.mcg.gov.in. If owners are found charging a fee at these 45 places, they can be reported to the MCG.”
The list includes several malls on MG Road and Sohna Road. The prominent ones among them are DLF City Court shopping centre-cum-office, First India Place, Grand Mall, Mega City Mall, Vipul Agora Mall on MG road; JMD Megapolis, JMD Galleria and Ninex City Mart on Sohna Road.
