LETTERS: Parking options

Apropos of the news story KMC looking for parking options to declare inner areas ‘walk-only’ zones” (THT, November 14, Page 2), whenever I have to take my old mum to our family home in the core area, I park my old car in Kathmandu Mall. I find the charge of Rs. 50 an hour a good bargain for the safety of my car. What I have also noticed is most of the shops in the mall are all shuttered. If the mall can open a few more floors for parking it would be good. The mall should be allowed to charge by the size of the vehicles. KMC can also make temporary arrangement for parking at Nepal Airlines, which already demands Rs. 500 at every entry through a notice at its grilled gate, and the general post office. NAC charge should not be too much for huge SUVs that cost upward of Rs. 20 million. There could be many other temporary places for parking like the nurses’ hostel near Bir Hospital. In the long run we would need a huge underpass for parking. Since this would cost huge money, we could built in the annual parking charges of Rs 20,000 thousand for bikes and Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 100,000 for cars and SUVs payable at DoTM along with renewal of blue books. A kith told me that he has not bought a car in Japan as the parking charges alone is US$ 300 per annum whether he parks at home or wherever.

Manohar Shrestha, Kathmandu

Disasters

It is sad to know that the Iran-Iraq border has been hard hit by a powerful earthquake with 7.3 magnitude on the Richter scale in which more than 450 people have been killed and thousands of others injured.The related pictures and the international reports that are pouring in now speak volumes about the impact and the aftermath of the earthquake. Even as the details of the epicenter of the earthquake and its magnitude are coming in from the seismologists, it has also been reported that the rescue efforts have been disturbed owing to the damaged roads in the affected areas. On the one hand, climate change, drought conditions and floods are now posing threats to many countries and other disastrous incidents like earthquakes have so far taken a heavy toll on the international community on the other. All these things point to the fact that serious steps are required to safeguard the earth. For instance, Asian countries have long been affected by the vagaries of the weather. I am bound to say that my native areas such as Tuticorin, Tiruchendur, Tirunelveli, Palayamkottai, Kanyakumari, Nagercoil and Marthandam in Tamil Nadu are battling the issues of water scarcity and agrarian crisis triggered by the monsoon vagaries. The damage caused to the river Tamiraparani through illegal sand mining is now playing havoc with the monsoon prospect. Such bad things can happen anywhere in the world. Besides, the population the rigorous urbanization are other threats facing the earth.  For example, the Indian metropolitan city of Mumbai has long been facing these issues.