SMC marshals also work as parking contractors in Surat

SURAT: Marshals employed by

Surat Municipal Corporation

(

SMC

) nowadays have also an additional task of working as on-street parking contractors for the civic body in the city. They collect parking charges, recover penalty and make sure that on-street parking of vehicles is done in a proper way because the parking contract has not yet been awarded by the civic body.


The

job

of marshals is essentially to provide security to SMC teams when they go for removal of encroachments and also protect the civic body’s properties. Over 700 marshals were appointed by SMC in 2017 and placed under watch and ward department, subsequent to which 275 were shifted to fire and emergency department.

When on-street parking concept was introduced and pilot projects were started at a few places in the city two months ago, the marshals were assigned to their new role. They have become on-street parking contractors on Athwalines Road, near cable-stayed bridge and new court building. They are in SMC uniform but carry receipt books, collect parking fee and make people do orderly parking of their vehicles.

“We didn’t know that this also is a part of our job. But we do whatever job is assigned to us,” said a

marshal

.

Jagrut Nayak,

chief security officer

of SMC, said, “A decision was taken to govern the pilot project of on-street parking in-house. Thus, the job was assigned to assistant municipal commissioners of zones and marshals. We want to get the exact result of the experiment and so no outsider has been employed. When something is done in-house, we can get a good idea of how things are going. This is why marshals have been assigned to this task.”

A marshal is employed on a three-year contract before he is made a permanent employee of the civic body. He gets a fixed salary of Rs 10,000 when on contract, sources said.


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