KOLKATA: The Kolkata Police and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) have cracked down on illegal parking and encroachment on roads across the city, hours after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's message on how illegal parking interferes with free movement. is becoming an obstacle for Divisions moved from place to place, removing illegal parking from arterial roads and important connectors. Be it the town of South Kolkata or Bahala Salpara or Maniktala in North Kolkata, the police removed illegally parked vehicles or warned motorists against parking on the road. Currently, the raids, which began on Monday, may continue twice a day at specific locations identified by Lalbazar. In Lal Bazar, the police held a meeting with the OCs and ACPs of the traffic wing, instructing them that traffic should not be blocked due to illegal parking “at any cost”. Top cops reportedly wanted a list of all minor roads where parking is allowed on both sides, a practice Lalbazar claimed needed to be stopped. “We have decided to maintain a 24-hour vigil using CCTV cameras. Multiple drives will be conducted at the same location – particularly in central Kolkata's Free School Street, Comic Street, Dalhousie and Barbazar, where non- “Legal parking has become a major traffic bottleneck. Along with KMC, we will prominently mark the parking areas so that violators know what they are doing is illegal,” an officer said. said “Several vehicles are also parked away from EM bypass and DH road. These include buses. If they encroach on the road space, they should be removed. All police stations and traffic guards should follow this rule. has been told,” said a joint commissioner. The KMC said that now both illegal parking and related extortion will be addressed. “We are identifying the parking agencies involved in corruption. We will share their names with the Kolkata Police. We will ask the police to take legal action against them. We will discuss ways to do this. will have a meeting with the police soon,” said an official from KMC's parking department. The traffic guards of Central and South Kolkata have also reported to Lalbazar and KMC about the problems they face while trying to park vehicles in these commercial and office zones. One of the key issues in Lalbazar's report is non-use of online payments. Police said that while the faulty network prevented POS devices from accepting payments, these were “only by mistake and in rare cases”. The South and East Traffic Guards have now proposed that each attendant carry a rate charge to avoid confusion. They have also asked for such charts to be properly displayed along the parking lot and have been directed to report all problems related to the device to the MC and the local police. Absence/lack of boards displaying parking fees. We will send a compiled report to the agencies. Also in Park Street where some display boards have been damaged, agencies have been asked to fix them. Parking agents were sensitized about wearing uniforms, showing photo identification, using POS machines and reporting equipment malfunctions,'' said an officer.