TIMES CITY

THE TIMES OF INDIA, KOLKATA | SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2009

MAMATA DECIDES TO GO ON THE OFFENSIVE OVER VEDIC ROW | 3

WOMEN RAILWAY OFFICIALS TO CHECK FOOD SUPPLIED ON TRAINS | 4

Parking fee bullies have a free run

Sudipto Das

BERTRAM STREET

HOGG STREET

HUMAYUN PLACE

Subhro Niyogi & Saikat Ray | TNN

ohit Khanna steered his Honda City into the parking lot on Hogg Street, adjoining the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) headquarters. Since it was next to the citys civic hub, he thought it was a hassle-free place to park before leaving to shop at New Market with his wife. When he returned less than two hours later, the parking attendant demanded Rs 50 as Puja baksheesh. Not wanting an ugly scene, he paid up and drove off. But he realized how rotten the parking problem is around the citys landmark market. Sourav Dey had an even bitter experience. He had spent just 50 minutes in New Market after parking his Maruti Omni on Bertram Street to the west of the market. The attendant demanded Rs 20. When he pointed out that the parking fee was Rs 7 for an hour, the attendant insisted he had crossed the one-hour limit and it was Rs 10 an hour during the prePuja rush season. Other attendants surrounded him, shouted him down and chided him for making an issue over a measly sum. Dey had to relent. Just about anyone who has been to New Market in a car in the past fortnight has faced such problems. The attendants boldly admit they charge more because of the festive season. We dont force anyone. We just ask people to shell out a little more. After all, this is the festive season, said attendant Swapan Mistry who , has 10 car slots on Hogg Street. For most of the year, his collection is around Rs 100 from each car slot. But come Puja and this shoots up to Rs 250-300.

dants ensure that at least 80 cars line up during this shopping bonanza. Bertram Street has around 90 cars and Humayun Place, opposite New Empire, about 40. At the opposite end, 10 cars are parked on Fennick Bazaar Street. The total car count is 210. And at a conservative estimate of Rs 250 per car slot per day total business , during the pre-Puja rush adds up to Rs 52,500. The month-and-a-half long shopping frenzy rakes in a staggering Rs 23.63 lakh! This is minus the 500-plus bike slots that generate a few lakhs more. The 21 men managing the car slots are paid Rs 4,500-Rs 9,000 a month. Taking the average pay cheque at Rs 7,000, the monthly salary payout adds up to Rs 1.47 lakh. Add another Rs 53,000 in provident fund and gratuity and the cooperative has to fork out Rs 2 lakh. Given the 30-day collection is Rs 15.75 lakh, the net earning is Rs 13.75 lakh.

Parking attendants at New Market are fleecing customers in festive season

Parking anywhere near New Market is a nightmare. Even if I find a slot, I have to part with extra money because the attendants want more. They often misbehave with customers
Sharmistha Mukherjee | BUSINESS EXECUTIVE

We face terrible harassment at the hands of parking attendants. They charge extra, without caring for KMC rates, and choose whom to give space for parking. With Puja, it will get worse
Ganesh Das | DRIVER

of road parking. Even police can do nothing because of the clout that the cooperative wields in political circles, said a senior bureaucrat.

Underground parking at a loss

Simplex, the company that built the underground parking lot, has given up hope. We have taken it up with KMC time and again but nothing was done. Theres no political will to improve the situation around New Market. Simpark is bleeding as it remains poorly utilized all year except the festive season. Far from imposing a ban on road parking, the KMC parks department renewed the contract for the lots in April, Simpark commercial manager Santanu Banerjee said. It is for KMC to decide whether it will impose a ban on road parking to honour the (Simpark) agreement or not. They are taking license fees from the agency which runs these parking lots. So the agency is operating legally More. over, the parking lots are right next to KMC headquarters. So they are completely aware of the situation. Police can enforce the ban when KMC imposes it. We made Lindsay Street a No Parking area after the civic authorities gave us a green signal. They havent done anything about the other streets, Kolkata Police additional CP K Hari Rajan said.

The rates on the KMC parking chart on Hogg Street have been erased

Citu-backed agencys monopoly

A band of men under Pioneer Cooperative Parking, Servicing & Construction Society Ltd has monopolized the business since 1977 when it was set up, after the Left Front came to power. Of the 42 such cooperatives in Kolkata, Pioneer is the largest, winning bids for collecting parking fee in the entire central business district and rest of central Kolkata for three decades. It isnt coincidence that Pioneer is affiliated to CPMs labour wing Citu. It is one of the many rackets that has been institutionalized by a section of the Citu. During the Trinamool Congress KMC board, an attempt was made to end this monopoly with an underground parking lot project on Lindsay Street. But by the time it was completed, the board had changed and Left was again in power. Though it could not stop the construction of Simpark, KMC reneged on the agreement to free the area

If we get rude with the car owners, it is because they get rude first. Yes, we sometimes charge extra from them, but it is purely voluntary. As for the ban on parking, let KMC decide on that
Swapan Mistry | HOGG ST PARKING ATTENDANT

We have successfully thwarted the move to ban parking around New Market and will continue to do so. I dont understand why such a nonsense agreement (with Simpark) should come into effect. No one can remove parking from New Market or Chowringhee
Jagadish Chowdhury | CITU LEADER & SECY,
PIONEER SERVICE AGENCY

Not easy to dislodge us

At Hart Ford Lane, off Lindsay Street, two gruffy men sit at the Pioneer Cooperative office. Others relax at the Citu office next door. They are not worried about being driven out of business by either KMC or police. Do you think police dont have a stake in the parking business? The parking lots that were removed from Lindsay Street were compensated on Marquis Street, said one of them. They are worried, however, about the

Big bucks In baksheesh

As many as 60 cars crunch into Hogg Street. With double parking, the atten-

PARKOMAT

winds of change that seem to be blowing in the state. Right now, all cooperatives are under the Citu banner. Obviously, if Trinamool Congress comes to power, there will be a struggle for survival, they said. Jagdish Chowdhury secretary of Pi, oneer Cooperative, doesnt agree: There is no way anyone can remove parking from New Market or Chowringhee. It wont be so easy to dislodge us simply because someone has built an underground parking lot. Faiyaz Ahmad Khan, MMiC parking, remained evasive on the matter. I am not aware of the exact details of the agreement between KMC and Simpark but will look into the matter, he said. Opposition leader in KMC, Javed Khan, was predictably scathing in his attack. The Left Front board has surrendered to the Citu-operated agency and reneged on an agreement, Khan said. SS Hogg Market Traders Association president Ashok Gupta is frustrated with the situation. Its so chaotic that customers dread to come to New Market. Though we have recovered much of the business since Simpark opened, fortunes will dip again if the present situation persists, he said.

Working out? Beware of the big-calorie bite

Sumati Yengkhom | TNN

re you among those who work out religiously every day shell out big bucks for weight-reduction ses, sions, but still dont seem to lose any of the flab or bulge? Maybe its that soft drink you took with a burger the day before... And perhaps, you couldnt resist the french fries as well. The little snack that you take promising to sweat it off the next day may be the biggest hurdle in keeping you off the fitness levels you desire, say trainers. Twenty five-year-old Anusha found this out the hard way . After four months of intensive cardio and workouts, the 5.1-ft girl had not lost any of her 65 kg. When she went complaining to her trainer, a chart of her food habits gave away the bitesized secret. About 70% of those LITTLE SNACK BAD come for my weight loss who proFOR WEIGHT LOSS grammes pamper themselves with high calorie junk food but insist they have no more than two chapatis and dal twice a day with some vegetables. And then they complain that their weight does not budge, said Soumen Das, proprietor of Soumens Work Out. During investigation, Das found out that throughout the day, his clients have been gorging on an samosas, a few biscuits, a little bit of bhujia, a dosa and a scoop of ice cream. All of this adds up to almost 2,000 extra calories. An average adult needs no more than 1500 calories a day according to WHO. , How can they achieve that kind of weight loss if they keep bingeing? A 20-minute workout on a treadmill at a good speed can burn 350 calories at most and 600 calories in a strict one-hour workout. Think of 2,000 calories! We have to make a great effort to educate our clients on calorie counting, said Das.

Most people do not realize the calorie value in a handful of cookies or a can of soft drink they grab on the way to office. Obese people tend to eat more without realizing that they are bingeing. Even while going through a strict exercise routine, many ignore the dietary part, which makes the workout ineffective, said AMRI cardio-diabetic expert Dr Lalit Kumar Muskara. Regular exercise keeps off a lot of health complications, like diabetes, hypertension and cholesterol. Before starting medical treatment, we advise patients to go for weight loss and diet control. A new study conducted by US researchers says many of those who work out for long duration end up not achieving the predicted weight loss due to increased calorie intake. A team from the University of Missouri, University of South Carolina and Louisina State University took up 464 overweight women, and divided them into four groups. While three were assigned workout routines, the fourth was the control group. Two groups that were assigned 72 to 136 minutes of exercise per week showed weight loss as predicted. But the third group was only half as successful. The reason was their habit of snacking. About 10% of those training under me develop the habit of indulging in high calorie junk food, defeating the whole purpose of the weight loss programme, said weight trainer Arijit Chatterjee. Nutritionists, weight trainers and doctors point out that diet is as important as exercise for achieving weight loss. Whether or not exercise leads to weight loss, it definitely benefits because it boosts the metabolic process. For obese people, it has to be a combination of good dietary regime alongside a strict exercise routine, said Dr B Sivkumar, former director of National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad. So, mind the extra bite next time.

Rs 75 lakh out-of-court settlement over Paran

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Buddha disgusted with rot in party in hour of crisis

the duhshomoy (bad times) and lead the party from the front. He is not shattered by the Kolkata: Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhat- partys reverses in the Lok Sabha elections. In tacharjee is upset with the rot within the par- fact, he was the first to make the right noises TOI ty which he joined in his youth after the Lok Sabha polls in the with high ideals. CPM state secretariat meeting The chief minister is deeply when some his party colleagues concerned with the recent dewere trying to defend themselves velopments, from the Vedic Vilby putting all the blame on CPMs lage row to the debate over the falling out with Congress over IT township, housing minister the nuclear deal. Gautam Deb said the other day . But this honest politician What Deb did not say is that the could not mend the ways of the CM is disgusted with the way party as he so desired. The dishis Cabinet colleagues are shoottrict satraps often proved too ing their mouths off and castpowerful for him. Bhattacharjee ing aspersions on each other at UNEASY LIES THE HEAD? wanted to bring fresh and clean a time when the entire party faces as candidates in the Lok should stand united. Sabha polls. It did not happen. The CM wantThe emotional person that he is, Bhat- ed to offer a clean and transparent governtacharjee is not going to walk out of the cor- ment. It got entrapped in the tentacles of reridors of power as he did once during the altors and land mafia, much to his displeasJyoti Basu regime. Now, he would rather face ure. At times, this disgust is showing.
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Kolkata: The screening of Bengali blockbuster Paran Jaye Jalia Re will continue, with the litigants in the plagiarism case telling Calcutta High Court on Friday that they had entered into an out-of-court settlement (for Rs 75 lakh) and wanted to withdraw the case. On Tuesday, a division Bench of Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh and Justice I P Mukerji had stayed the screening of Paran on the charge of plagiarism. The order was to take effect from Friday . Acting on a suit filed by Bollywood filmmaker Vipul Shah, Justice Nadira Patheriya had, on August 10, passed an interim order stopping the screening of Paran. Shah alleged in his suit that Sri Venkatesh Films, makers of Paran, starring Dev and Subhashree, had copied the film, frame by frame, from his 2007 Hindi blockbuster Namastey London. Sri Venkatesh Films filed an appeal against the ban order before the division bench the same day Screening of the Bengali . film, however, continued as Shahs lawyers submitted that they would not take any legal action against the Bengali filmmakers. The division bench appointed one lawyer from each side as special officers to collect the box office collections of Paran and directed that the money be kept with a bank. On Tuesday, the division bench dismissed the appeal by Sri Venkatesh Films and upheld the ban order of Justice Patheriya. The court, however, stayed its operation till Thursday . On Friday, lawyers of both parties appeared before the division Bench and placed a written agreement. Both sides submitted that they had settled the dispute out-of-court. They disclosed that the amount of the settlement was Rs 75 lakh.