This year, the South municipal agency will give its residents freedom from harassment meted out by parking attendants. The agency has decided to make the handheld electronic devices to issue parking tickets mandatory in its jurisdiction. The devices are connected to the agency’s central server and to Delhi Police server. These will allow the drivers to pay for parking through More cards, that are accepted in the DTC buses and the Delhi Metro. Explaining the newly drafted parking policy, Mayor (South) Savita Gupta said the handheld device will ensure that correct amount is charged from the drivers. They will also allow the corporation to estimate the money earned by each parking site. The South corporation is yet to procure the handheld devices, which will have SIM and SAM (Secure Access Module) card slots. “SIM card will attach the handheld devices to central server of corporation. Thus, we will know when a car enters the parking lot and how much is charged. Parking attendants won’t be able to park extra cars at the site as we will draw a yellow line to mark the parking area. They will not be able to overcharge. SAM card will have encryption codes that will make the device data transmission to central server secure. The data cannot be intercepted,” Gupta said. Each parking will have two to three devices, in case one develops a snag. “A device can store 1,000 data entries at a time. Our server will alert the officials if anybody tries to alter the specifications of a device,” a senior official said. The data forwarded to the police department will help track stolen vehicles. “When the registration number of a stolen vehicle is fed in the device at a parking facility, the attendant will get to know about the status of the vehicle and he can inform the police,” the official said. The penal action against parking contractors who break the rules has been made more stringent. A parking contractor penalised for five violations will be blacklisted and barred from future contracts (see box). The parking licence will be renewed every year for two years. The registration of those who want to participate in process of procuring handheld devices will start from October 15 and continue till October 30. New guidelines will be in place by the beginning of next year, an official said.