Personal vehicles abound in city

Chandigarh, January 11

While the road infrastructure remains the same, the number of vehicles registered in the city are increasing every year leading to accidents.

From just 1,000 vehicles on its roads in 1967, the city now has 8.50 lakh vehicles registered.

As per the data of the Registration of the Licensing Authority, Chandigarh, 4,500 vehicles are registered every month on an average basis. The number of vehicles registered is increasing every year.

While 21,398 vehicles were registered in 2006, the number of vehicles registered in 2015 recorded 46,206, which is more than double in 10 years.

SK Chadda, former Chief Engineer of Chandigarh, said if the trend continued then the congestion would increase more on the already over-starched roads leading to the higher number of accidents.

He said a majority of people were using personal vehicles to travel across the city. The public transport should be improved so that maximum numbers of people can switched over to it.

Experts say that very small per cent of the population is using the public transport while a majority of the residents travel in personal vehicles. The city is far ahead of the other cities in terms of per capita ownership of the vehicles.

Chadda said there was an urgent need to construct a flyover and an underpass in the city. The pedestrian path is also missing on most of the roads. People use main roads for walking which leads to accidents.

Years Number of vehicle registered

2006 21,398

2007 24711

2008 26891

2009 31925

2010 52,333

2011 49206

2012 51112

2013 45102

2014 46465

2015 46206

2016 44938