Malls sans parking space get MC permission to operate

Tribune News Service

Jammu, May 7

Making mockery of urban planning, several showroom and malls in the city have got permission to operate without having suitable parking space, leading to frequent traffic jams on roads. There is chaos visible outside these commercial places, particularly in the New Plot-Janipur area.

Multiplex malls and big showrooms are mushrooming in the city, but most of them have invested little in creating parking space for vehicles and allow illegal encroachment of roads to make way for parking which has created a messy situation.

In the ever-bustling areas in the old city, including Jain Bazaar, Panjtirthi, Parade Shalamar, Purani Mandi, Raghunath Bazaar, BC road, High Court road and Canal Road, it’s an arduous task for pedestrians to walk through these areas where honking and screeching by vehicles are the order of the day.

“Look at the chaos outside a mall opened on the Janipur-Bantalab stretch. It becomes difficult for people to pass through the area because of parking of vehicles on the road. We fail to understand how they got permission to open such a huge commercial complex without providing proper parking,” said Ravish Sharma, a daily commuter.

Traffic congestion in the city is emerging as the biggest problem as over 50,000 vehicles are being added every year to the already overcrowded roads of the city.

However, sources said plans for creation of multi-parking structures at the bus stand and Shalimar Chowk and other projects had been struck at the survey level for the past five years. No headway had been made to get them rolling, despite several official statements from ministers in the successive governments.

“The authorities are responsible for not creating better parking space, general public is losing sense of parking and the traffic police are not doing their job with dedication and sincerely,” said Darshan Singh, a trader.

The city is facing a huge problem of parking with the addition of thousands of vehicles every year.