DRIVER'S NIGHTMARE

This article was printed in The Dawn in the magazine section on the 27th of February 2011, part of a section covering parking and attendant issues in the large cities of the country

Lahore: Driver’s nightmare!

InpaperMagzine

By Rabia Ahmed

‘Any place worth its salt has a parking problem’

Well Lahore certainly does. Gulberg, Lahore’s premier shopping area today, is where my father tells me he and his family once picnicked (circa World War II) coming from the inner city in a tonga, with snacks to eat on the way.

Today’s Gulberg ain’t a picnic, just a driver’s nightmare.

There is no ‘adequate’ parking attached to many of the shopping arcades. People park anywhere they can, on the street, in the service lanes, squished up against someone else’s car, astride an open manhole, alongside a smoldering trash pile, wherever. It is not unusual to find a car blocking another, while the Begum who has parked it nips into the shops for ‘just a minute’.

Given the summer heat, people try to park as close to their destination as possible. Almost before they find a space, a genie materialises, brandishing his little book of tickets, the ubiquitous parking attendant who will try to arrange parking for cars in the little or no available space and make some money out of it.

You pay your parking fee before your leave your car, and obtain a little ticket which you place in the innermost depths of your bag, where you later search for it frantically when you need to go away.

Ticket fee varies, and is based on whether you a drive a car or motorbike, at times also on the length of time for which you park your car, such as at the parking lot at Liberty Market.

I spoke to some parking attendants and picked Mr A and B as the most representative. I was requested to leave their names out of the story.

Mr A says that his parking spaces behind the main boulevard in Gulberg cost Rs10 per car, and Rs5 per motor cycle, no time factor involved. Mr B says his spaces, on the main boulevard in Gulberg are pricier, costing Rs20 per car and Rs10per motor cycle. Oddly enough he said that the fee is actually half of what is charged, but when I pressed him to elaborate, he just looked shifty and changed the subject!

It is the city government, further divided into districts, that handles parking. Each district handles its own area via their representatives the ‘contractors’.

Parking attendants are government employees, paid between Rs250 to Rs300 per day. Mr A gets Sundays off, but Mr B works seven days a week, with less pay on Sundays, work being slacker that day.

Only days worked are paid for, which means that any days taken off, even due to illness, are unpaid. Nice.

A working day begins at 9 am for Mr A and ends at 11 pm. Mr B’s working day starts at 10 am, and carries on till whenever the last car leaves, which may be past midnight.

Each day starts with the ‘contractor’ issuing booklets to the attendants via their ‘boss’ on behalf of the district government, and ends similarly with the recovery of the stubs and the cash. Anything between 700 to 800 tickets are issued on a normal day. In case of a discrepancy in the number of tickets issued, and the cash turned in, the ‘boss’ is liable to get rather shirty with his workers.

Customers are by and large easy to deal with except for the few who claim that ‘tussi museebat paai ay’ (you are a pain in the neck), and the few who are unwilling to pay because their driver remains in the car, saying this does not technically qualify as ‘parking’.  They’re nice guys, these attendants, my only peeve being that they will direct female drivers, and will moreover stand right behind the car while doing so. One day if I hit one, let it be known that it was not because I was too stingy to pay my parking fee.

— Rabia Ahmed