Mumbai's first robotic car parking facility at Breach Candy has now been shut down. The 20-storey parking tower was built by Akruti Builders. Later, it was handed over to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in 2015. However, its robotic arms were not working and it could not be operated due to leakage issues.
It took the BMC several years to repair the tower and it was finally inaugurated in June 2021 by Shiv Sena leader and MLA Aaditya Thackeray and former mayor Kishori Pednekar.
However, the contractor temporarily suspended operations from November 15 this year after the BMC failed to pay the dues of INR 80 lakh for the last 7-8 months.
The robotic tower can accommodate as many as 240 vehicles. This gave citizens a relief from parking on the narrow streets, which led to traffic and congestion.
A senior official from the BMC’s roads and transport department said, “The parking facility has been closed for the past few days. The mechanical department had awarded the contract and they are resolving the dispute."
The parking tower was well received by the public. On weekdays, there used to be at least 80 cars and on weekends, around 200 cars. On November 10, they came and gave a public notice that the operations were closed, an employee appointed by another contractor to collect parking fees told FPJ.
The Breach Candy public parking lot falls under category ‘A’ and has a hefty parking fee. The monthly pass for four-wheelers is INR 4,400. The parking fee for one hour is INR 70 and for more than 12 hours, it is INR 240. Despite the high parking fees, the parking facility received a good response from citizens and even people living in nearby buildings, who do not have parking spaces.
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