Parking remains a pain in Jammu

Tribune News Service

Jammu, March 28

The civic bodies fail to construct enough parking lots in the city. Not only this, most of the parking lots have been given on contract by the Jammu Municipal Corporation (MC) and Jammu Development Authority (JDA) to private contractors, who charge at their will from people for parking vehicles. Nobody is there to keep a check on them.

Nearly five lakh vehicles are on roads and there is not enough parking space created by the government bodies. Little consideration has been paid to parking while building big shopping complexes and malls. As per data, there are nine parking lots under the JDA with capacity of 1,200 cars and 500 two-wheelers, while the MC has dozen more.

“Over a decade multiplexes, malls and big showrooms have mushroomed in Jammu, but majority of them have invested little in creating parking space for vehicles,” alleged Sushil Sharma, a trader in old city.

Recently with management of rising number of vehicles in the rapidly growing urban centres of Jammu and Kashmir becoming a nightmare for the administration, the government has decided to formulate a comprehensive city transport policy for scientific management of the vehicles.

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.

“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, private contractors are openly flouting the rules,” said Kapil Gupta, who works in a private marketing company.