Maharashtra’s State Transport Commissioner VN More has suggested that only those people should be allowed to purchase cars who have adequate parking slots in cities like Mumbai and Pune. In his proposal to the Maharashtra Government, More has said that the Motor Vehicles Act be amended so that prospective car buyers could be asked to present proof that they owned slots in their buildings to park a vehicle before buying one. “We cannot turn public roads into parking slots for car owners. There are too many cars on the roads in cities like Mumbai,” More said. He added that people who did not have adequate parking spaces should be barred from owning cars. There are 24.30 lakh cars alone in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation limits as on December 2012. The number of parking spaces in buildings is minuscule with older buildings in South Mumbai having no slots for vehicles at all. Civic officials admit around 45 per cent of these cars are parked on the roads. “We tow away cars parked on the streets every night but people pay the fine and claim their vehicles the next day,” says Upendra Naik, Executive Engineer, BMC. This is not the first time that the municipal corporation has mooted restricting car ownership in the city. But each time such a proposal is made, it is opposed by automobile companies and car owners on various grounds. Automobile manufacturers have instead been asking the civic body to construct parking slots and rent these out on a commercial basis. So far, 30,000 such slots have been constructed, but these have proved insufficient for the number of cars entering the city’s roads every year.