No end to parking woes at Dharamsala’s Bhagsunag

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, November 7

The parking problems at Bhagsunag, a tourist hub area of Dharamsala, seem unending. Despite the fact that the area comes under the Smart City Dharamsala project, no solution has been found to the problem.

At present, an open area measuring about 6 kanals of land at the centre of Bhagsunag is being used for parking of vehicles. Though there is no tree cover on the land being used for parking of vehicles, in revenue papers the area is classified as forest land. Due to this, the proposal of bringing up a multi-storey parking lot on the area has not moved ahead.

Divert land already used for parking

We do not know why the land being used for parking of vehicles for past two decades cannot be diverted for construction of a multi-level parking. —Ashwani Bamba, President, Upper dharamsala hotel and restaurant association

Ashwani Bamba, president of Upper Dharamsala Hotel and Restaurant Association, said that the proposal to bring up the multi-level parking at Bhagsunag has been caught in red tape for the past many years.

“We do not know why a small piece of land that is located in hub of Bhagsunag, and is being used for parking of vehicles for past two decades cannot be diverted for construction of multi-level parking. The government has been diverting hundreds of acres of forest land for projects but just about 6 kanals land in Bhagsunag is not being diverted. The hoteliers of the region have proposed that in case the land is provided by the government they can construct multi-level parking on their own,” he said.

Dharamsala Mayor Onkar Nehria, who also belongs to Bhagsunag area, said the local body had sent a case for transferring 6 kanal forest land to be used for construction of multi-level parking. However, the forest department had rejected the case both times.

“We will again send the case and request Forest Minister Rakesh Pathania to get the land transferred for construction of multi-level parking in Bhagsunag,” he said.

Besides the multi-level parking, many projects in Dharamsala city are not getting through for want of permission to transfer small patches of forest land for other purposes. The road connecting Dharamkot with Naddi and the road from Dharamkot to Galu Mata temple have not been metaled as these are forest lands in revenue papers.

Forest Minister Rakesh Pathania had recently announced that the permissions for diversion of up to 44 hectares forest land would be given in Shimla. The cases for all diversion of forest lands were earlier sent to Dehradun. “We now hope that the permission for diversion of forest land in Bhagsunag would be given by the Forest Department from Shimla so that the parking problems of the area could be resolved,” Nehria said.