"Pay Via EMI?" Old Pic Of Bengaluru's Rs 1,000/Hour Parking Charge Viral

With the number of vehicles rising rapidly on roads, parking prices too have seen steep hike. But photo of a premium parking in Bengaluru is making waves on the internet. The signboard installed there shows people will have to pay Rs 1,000 per hour to park their vehicles. Though the exact date when the photo was taken is not known, but it has gone massively viral on X, amassing more than 70,000 views. It has also sparked a big discussion on the micro-blogging platform.

The photo was originally posted by Ishan Vaish, who said it was clicked at the UB City Mall.

The luxury mall was in the news earlier too when social media users first highlighted the steep parking charges. In 2015, the mall used to charge Rs 40 for two hours, but the amount was increased to Rs 100 due to increasing demand.

Shocked users highlighted that prices in Bengaluru have been skyrocketing over the past few years becoming "ridiculous".

"Do they also wash and polish the car in that money or something?" asked one user. "Pay via EMI?" questioned another.

"Well they did promise to make Bangalore like Singapore, Hongkong, London, Dubai," a third user said. "Premium parking? You get blue tick on car?" another user commented.

Some of them shared similar experience at other places. One user claimed he paid a similar amount for a self-drive car in Goa.

India's technology hub is among the hottest residential markets in the country, which has seen the rent nearly double in less than two years.

The capital of Karnataka state is home to over 1.5 million workers including those for global firms like Google, Amazon, Goldman Sachs Group and Accenture.

That population was displaced during the pandemic, with staff moving to remote work or departing the city, pushing rents down. Now that Covid is over, Bengaluru's economy and private sector has stirred back to life, and landlords are looking to recoup lost revenue.