In India, mostly everyone likes to drive around in their cars, which is fine until the issue of parking comes in play. The issue can be a headache particularly in crowded markets and streets where people park vehicles in a haphazard manner. Like many cities, Srinagar is also facing an acute problem of parking.
But the city now seems to be all set to take a lead in implementing a model that could help change the situation. Srinagar is going to be the first city to start the ‘on-street’ parking project.
“The marking for on-street parking program has begun and the city is the first which has been able to mandate and mark on-street parking program with paid parking spots. This is in line with the National Urban Transport Policy 2006”, said Anuj Malhotra, Traffic Advisor to Government of Jammu & Kashmir.
Round 20 kms of road in the city is to be covered in this program of on-street parking. As per officials, work on around 5 kms has been kick started on the pilot basis.
“We are taking up the initiative and will work out its larger layout soon. The process will roll out in total when we are able to integrate IT based parking ticket system with this which is also on track and should take a few months to come through”, said Anuj Malhotra.
Parking has been the toughest to implement and to manage by any city in the world, not just in India, which is one of the reasons that most parking initiatives have failed to take ground.
‘On-street’ parking management is being seen as a solution to streamline the system. However, a lot of people feel that this idea may be great but the real challenge lies in its implementation on the ground.
“It is great that some of the areas are being marked on the streets. But we have to really wait and see how they will implement the whole program. Many things get initiated but we never see the completion here,” said Umar Sheikh, a trader in Lal Chowk area of Srinagar.
In larger cities like Delhi, the on-street parking management has been extremely tough to implement in areas like Lajpat Nagar, South Delhi, Khan Market, Karol Bagh, etc.
In Connought Place, New Delhi, on-street has been converted to off-street for management, which is currently being done. In Mumbai, Fort and Bandra areas, Navi Mumbai etc, on-street parking management had public backlash and was abandoned. While Bangalore is trying to manage on-street parking and has succeeded to some extent.
“We know the challenges and we are trying to take one step at a time. For now, Srinagar Municipal Corporation will run this for few months. We are hopeful that the nature of city will help us in doing it. Also we are going to make sure that technology is used in a massive way to help it”, said an official from Srinagar Municipal Corporation.
As per the plan, the current initiative will produce more than 1700 on-street parking spots along with providing other essential public utilities, which will cover approximately 20 kms of road length.
This essentially means that the entire 20 kms road length will not only have better parking management, it will also result in easier walking space, marked bus and taxi stopping locations with less obstruction to flowing traffic. (By: India today)
