Solan MC urges Sports Department to return land for parking lot

Solan, March 14

In a bid to create additional parking space, the local Municipal Corporation (MC) today requested the Youth Services and Sports Department to retransfer 420 sq m land, which was transferred to it earlier for setting up an indoor sports stadium.

The said piece of land lies near the MC office on the Rajgarh road. The Sports Department had submitted a plan to the MC to set up an indoor stadium some months ago. The approval, however, had yet not been given.

A joint inspection of the site was undertaken by the officials of the MC as well as the Sports Department today where the latter was requested to submit revised map for setting up the stadium on specific khasra numbers besides returning back the remaining land. The area was also inspected by an architect who would prepare a revised map for the stadium.

A sum of Rs 10 crore was provided for this stadium by the state government. The Sports Department was planning to construct the stadium for the last several month but lack of approval of maps by the MC had put the work on hold.

The city has no indoor stadium where the sports enthusiasts can hone their skills. The demand for a stadium has been raised several times for the last several years by the city residents.

Another issue of a 71 sq m piece of land owned by a private individual lying ahead where a stadium is supposed to come up has also cropped up. This land is supposed to be swapped with the adjoining government land to pave way for the stadium.

“A large chunk of land had been allotted to the Sports Department for setting up an indoor stadium. Since their requirement was much less, a request has been made to them to transfer the remaining land to the MC so that a parking lot can be created there,” informed Rajeev Kaura, Deputy Mayor, Solan MC.

“The availability of land will help us create additional parking lots which were badly needed in the city given the rise in the number of vehicles entering the city,” said Kaura.

The MC officials were desperately trying to create additional parking space as vehicles are parked on the roads in various parts of the city. Besides causing hurdles in the smooth flow of traffic, the vehicle owners often face heavy penalties for wrongful parking. In the past one week, as many as 950 traffic challans were issued in Solan city while in its preceding week 1,165 challans were issued to the vehicle owners for various traffic offences, including idle parking, said SP Virender Sharma.