Jams near schools, hospitals, malls haunt motorists in city
PK Jaiswar
Amritsar, January 20
The failure of the district administration and the civic body to strictly enforce building bylaws is leading to illegal parking on roads and traffic jams.
While Mall Road and Lawrence Road are glaring examples of it, various private school administrations, hospitals mushroomed at every nook and corner and shopping malls have not lagged behind in making the situation even worse.
On paper in the building plans, parking spaces are there, but in actual they are absent or not being properly utilised in absence of any compliance.
Schools’ transports, parents coming for picking-and-dropping their children, people coming to shopping malls and even hospitals, park their vehicles on the road leading to (road) congestion, but authorities have turned a blind eye to these violations for the reasons perhaps known to everyone.
“The commuters are left at the mercy of god. Look at the school administrations having duty to inculcate discipline and moral values to children. The school transports drop and pick children from outside the school premises. People also pick and drop children outside the complex,” said Surjit Singh, a concerned citizen. It is the responsibility of the school managements to ensure streamlining of traffic outside their premises as cops cannot be deployed outside every school for regulating traffic.
Several hospitals have come up at main GT Road from railway station to Chheharta in the past one decade, but none has parking space.
Worsening the situation, the MC authorities have turned roadside parking outside some of these hospitals as paid parking, said another resident Dilbagh Singh.
Dharamvir Singh of Guru Harkrishan Senior Secondary School on main GT road said the school has streamlined the school transport into three different batches to avoid traffic congestion.
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Amandeep Kaur said the situation came to light during recent drives against encroachments launched by the police. We will take up the matter with the civic authorities in this connection.
