There is already a severe crisis in parking space in Hyderabad. People find much difficulty in parking their vehicles outside shopping malls, apartments and other buildings. Hence, people park vehicles wherever they find the place. This has no limits and most of them even park their vehicles in ‘No Parking’ places. Even in this situation, the Hyderabad Traffic Police has cracked the whip on city motorists who are parking their vehicles in wrong places.

City motorists, facing a severe dearth of parking space, may soon have to face jail if they park their vehicles in ‘wrong places’. Traffic Police has now decided to “prosecute” repeat offenders. According to the latest norm, any motorist found parking either in ‘No Parking’ zone or parking ‘dangerously’ or ‘obstructively’ anywhere in the city more than three times in a row, will be dragged to court and the offender could also end up behind bars.

Additional Commissioner of Police (traffic) Jitender said: “We have decided to crack the whip on people who pay no heed to the safety of other road-users and park anywhere they wish.” Apart from parking-related offences, he said that his team would also hand out stricter punishment to those repeatedly resorting to over-speeding, racing, jumping signals and cell phone driving.

At present, a motorist is fined between Rs 200 and Rs 1,000 for either parking in a manner that “may pose a risk to other vehicles” or illegally “parking on a public road”. “So far we have been issuing challans to such offenders. But here on, we will file charge-sheets and seek imprisonment from courts,” Jitender added. According to the traffic police data, around two lakh challans are issued for parking violations every month.