Violators to be challaned from Dec16

Arteev Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, December 10

With the deteriorating traffic scenario and frequent snarls on Jammu roads, the traffic police have decided to penalise those shopkeepers and citizens who park their vehicles alongside the road, from December 16.

The drive against wrongly parked vehicles will be mainly held on some busy and major roads, including Talab Tillo-Jewel Chowk, Janipur Road, Sarwal-New Plot-Rehari stretch, KC Crossing-B C Road up to Bus stand, Gumat Bazaar, Vinayak Bazaar, Prem Nagar-Gujjar Nagar, Parade-Kachi Chawni, Shalamar-Indira Chowk and Super Speciality Hospital road to Maheshpora-Bakshi Nagar Bazaar.

For this, an advisory has also been issued by the police for the shopkeepers and general public asking them to avoid parking of their vehicles on roads in view of the growing traffic pressure on the roads after Durbar Move to winter capital and seasonal migration of people from Kashmir, Doda, Kishtwar, Rajouri and Poonch.

However, the move has raised several eyebrows with the citizens accusing the authorities of the failure to creating “adequate parking spaces” within the city limits, forcing them to park their vehicles on roads.

“The wrong parking of vehicles on roads has now become a social issue for all of us. It is the collective responsibility of all citizens to avoid wrong parking of vehicles. The roadside parking of vehicles, particularly by the shopkeepers, has become a major source of traffic congestion which on many occasion also leads to accidents,” Joginder Singh, SSP Traffic, Jammu, said.

To a query about the shortage of parking spaces, the SSP said the people generally didn’t use designated parking slots. “Due to wrongly parked vehicles on roads and encroachments on footpaths, obstruction is caused to the smooth traffic flow. The people should refrain from doing so and we will launch joint drives, to be conducted by the Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC), the local police, revenue and traffic police to keep roads free for traffic,” the SSP said.

“There are over 8 lakh vehicles in Jammu district alone out of which 40 per cent are two-wheelers. Besides this, our roads also feel the pressure of additional more than 50,000 vehicles after Durbar Move and season migration of the people to Jammu in winters,” the police officer said.

The Union Government has planned to spend nearly Rs 570 crore on the creation of new parking lots and urban mobility plan for smart and sustainable transport solutions in twin capital cities — Jammu and Srinagar.

So far, the projects to create parking lots in Jammu either remained on papers or could not take off—courtesy administrative inertia and lack of political will. The multi-storey parking project at Panjtirthi, the foundation of which was laid thrice, is a perfect example of official apathy but it is yet to start.