Drive straight into parking problem

Drive straight into parking problem
SANDIP BAL

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 19: Ratikant Dhal, who frequents shopping malls across the city, is often fined by traffic policemen for parking his car in the no-entry zone. Dhal, however, pays the fine with a grudge as he is forced to violate traffic norms for the lack of parking lots in the city.

“We are often fined by traffic police for roadside parking. However, we are forced to park car there due to space crunch at all these malls. While the authorities have failed to provide the required parking slot, we have to bear the brunt for it,” said Rath, a government employee.

Similar is the case with Manas Rath, who works for a multinational company.

“We love to hang out at shopping malls. However, every time I visit there, I have to park my car outside. The fear of my car getting stolen is always there.”

The capital city houses around 10 shopping malls complete with state-of-the-art facilities. With the rise in population and people’s economic standards, the number of vehicles, especially four-wheelers, in the city has gone up.

This has added to the traffic load on roads while making the parking problem more acute.

Space crunch forces people to park cars on the roadside leading to frequent traffic jams. The situation worsen near shopping malls, apartments and public parks.

The problem is acute near seven public and 14 colony parks across the city. People visiting Indira Gandhi Park, Biju Pattnaik Park, Gandhi Park and Ekamra Kanan are invariably forced to park their vehicles roadside.

Deputy secretary of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) Ashok Kumar Mohapatra said: “Seven parking lots have been auctioned to private parties. Parking problem is their concern. In future we are going to auction 11 more such parking places.”

He, however, passed the buck to the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) regarding parking problem around malls.

“Most of these malls came up three years ago. After the enforcement of the BDA Regulation Act 2008, it was mandatory to keep 60 per cent of space for parking while 40 per cent for commercial purposes. The malls, which came up after the Act, had been abiding by the rules,” said BDA vice-chairman D.K. Singh.

However, regarding the shopping centres, which came up before the Act, the BDA could not demolish the structures.

Singh, however, admitted that there was need of parking slots in the city.

The owners of malls and shopping centres prefer to keep mum on the issue of parking problem.

“We have basement parking facilities for both customers and our staff. However, that’s not enough. When we started the mall we could not make out that parking problem would become so acute,” said one of shop owners on condition of anonymity.

Courtesy : TELEGRAPH