Heavy influx of tourists clogs Dharamsala roads

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, June 24

With the tourist season picking up in Dharamsala, long traffic jams are back in McLeodganj, Bhagsunag and Dharamkot. Long queues of vehicles are becoming the order of the day in McLeodganj, much to the chagrin of tourists.

Many tourists were stranded in long traffic jams near McLeodganj. Rakesh, a tourist from Punjab, said he and his family had to wait for an hour in their car to reach a hotel in McLeodganj.

Though the police are trying their best to control traffic at the main crossing of McLeodganj, no improvement has been witnessed primarily due to lack of infrastructure in the area. All parking places in McLeodganj are packed to capacity and hundreds of vehicles continue to converge on the tourist place. About 70 per cent of the hotels do not have their own parking space, resulting in vehicles being parked along roads or in limited parking places. Narrow roads to Bhagsunag and Dharamkot have been encroached upon and no action has been taken to clear the encroachment.

Even though the police have announced heavy fine for those parking on the roads in Dharamkot and Bhagsunag, the problem persists. With little space left for parking, locals, too, park their vehicles along the narrow roads, leading to traffic jams.

The traffic problem in McLeodganj and its surrounding tourist places, such as Dharamkot and Naddi that are the main tourist attractions in the area, can be solved to an extent if some incomplete road links are completed. The work on connecting the Bhagsunag area with Indrunag was started during the stint of the previous BJP government. However, the work is yet to be completed. Sources say the work has come to a standstill due to land acquisition problems. If the road is completed, it can handle one-way traffic and ease the traffic problem in the peak season. The road connecting Dharamkot with Naddi is half constructed. About 400-metre road remains to be constructed to connect the two. Here also the department has been facing the land acquisition problem. The ropeway project from Mcleodganj to Dharamsala once complete can also ease the traffic problem.

Incomplete projects add to problem

• The work on the road connecting the Bhagsunag area with Indrunag continues to hang fire for many years due to land acquistion problem
• Half constructed, the 400-metre road between Dharamkot with Naddi, too, is plagued by the land acquisition problem
• Both these roads once completed can ease the traffic problem to a large extent during the peak tourist season

Cops helpless

Though the police are trying their best to control traffic at the main crossing of McLeodganj, it can hardly do anything about the problem resulting from the lack of infrastructure in the area.