Why Bengaluru intends to charge residents for on-street parking

To encourage off-street parking, proposed new rules envisage residential car parking permits costing Rs 15,000 to Rs 25,000 per yearNew vehicle parking rules aiming at regulating the chaos on Bengaluru’s roads are on the anvil, with the Karnataka urban development department notifying a draft that seeks to radically rethink the way parking is organised in the city.For a start, public parking will no longer be free of charge, except for bicycles and autorickshaw stands. This will include residents parking vehicles on roads near their homes.The key approach of the new rules is freeing up carriageways for traffic in high-density corridors while creating off-street parking facilities using land owned by the five city corporations or by incentivising owners of vacant plots to develop parking spaces, including multi-level parking facilities.Bengaluru, among the most congested cities in the world, currently has about 2.5 million personal cars and 8.67 million two-wheelers registered locally. The overall number of Bengaluru-registered vehicles, including all categories and transport vehicles, stands at 12.81 million. The city also adds new vehicles at a rapid pace. New vehicle registrations in the first three months of FY2026-27 included 40,840 cars and 142,491 two-wheelers. Parking, therefore, has been a worsening problem, especially since 2022 when the traffic police ceased to tow away haphazardly-parked vehicles. “The high parking demand seen on roads, especially in business areas, is not only due to the sustained spurt in vehicle ownership and population over the past decade, but also because of the inefficient public transport system, poor pedestrian infrastructure, inefficient last and first mile connectivity and absence of demand management measures such as pricing of parking,” noted the Parking Policy 2.0, drawn up in 2020 by the Directorate of Urban Land Transport.“The civic agency and other public and private entities have built off-street parking infrastructure (multi-level parking lots) in few locations, but the approach has not been successful as on-street parking remains unmanaged, free of cost and unenforced,” the policy stated.Hence, the draft of the Greater Bengaluru Area (Parking) Rules, 2026, published on August 11, specifies that “on-street parking shall be strictly prohibited within an area around an off-street public parking lot to encourage motorists to use off-street lots for parking”. In addition, the minimum fee recommended for on-street parking is double that of an off-street facility. The draft rules suggest a minimum of Rs 80 for cars per hour on Grade A roads and Rs 40 per hour for off-street parking along these stretches.In a bid to develop more parking facilities, the rules propose to exempt vacant plot owners from property taxes and trade licences if they provide off-street public parking. However, they will need to provide parking services for at least 250 days in a year and must operate 12 hours a day.More significantly, the new rules aim to restrict residential parking on streets by issuing permits. “Residential parking on streets other than arterial and sub-arterial roads may be allowed only for owners of those vehicles issued with a residential parking permit,” says the draft, which is now open to the public for comments.“Residential parking permits may be issued against a vehicle and a name associated with that vehicle number only for those residents living in residential buildings that are not in violation of minimum parking requirements specified in the building bye-laws,” states the draft, adding that the permits would be renewed every year after verifying that the beneficiary continues to reside in the area.The residential permit fee would amount to Rs 15,000 per year for small cars, Rs 20,000 for sedans and Rs 25,000 SUVs.Subscribe to India Today Magazine- EndsPublished By: Akshita JollyPublished On: Aug 14, 2026 19:06 IST