Kupwara Town Carves for the Parking Slots, frequent traffic jams a routine now, says locals

Kupwara Town Carves for the Parking Slots, frequent traffic jams a routine now, says locals.

Have identified two locations for parking slots: Officials.

Kupwara: Suhail yousuf shah

The locals of the Kupwara town on Wednesday demanded the establishment of more parking slots as the town witnesses’ only one functional parking zone and other lying defunct.

The locals of the area told Global Kashmir that the area has just two parking lots in the Kupwara town out of which one is defunct.
The locals further said that encroachment is most often made by shopkeepers and vendors and entry of heavy motor vehicles in the town during no entry hours creates more traffic Mess.

With hardly one functional parking slot in the town here, the parked vehicles occupy the roads, leading to chaos and frequent traffic jams at the district headquarters, said locals.

According to the reports the town has a population of around 15,000, vehicles and the roads are inhabited by the parked vehicles, mostly private cars leaving hardly any space for running transport to ply smoothly.

While the shopkeepers and pedestrians complain that footpaths and pavements are occupied by vendors and roads by cars due to which town remains choked with frequent traffic jams resulting in inconvenience to people and commuters.

The worst traffic congestion points include Regipora Market, Iqbal Market, Jamia Road, By Pass Road, Hayhama Road and Sogam Road.

“All the three parking spaces identified and almost completed by Urban Local Bodies department are lying defunct thus add to the problems of the people,” said Syed Aijaz Andrabi, a senior trader of Kupwara.

“Most of the owners park their vehicles either on roads or on pavements,” Aijaz ahmad added.

Chairman Municipal Committee Kupwara Reyaz Ahmad Mir said we have identified more two locations for parking slots and funds have been released for them but he admitted that there is lack of functional parking spaces in the town.

“The number of vehicles is increasing day by day and there is also huge pressure on roads and markets,” he said, adding that, “Urban Local Bodies department have already identified three parking slots but they were either defunct or occupied by load carrier drivers but we made them functional half year before”.

He further said some parking slots are functional well but people are not ready to park their vehicles or they are not ready to pay Municipality charges.

Meanwhile Police on Tuesday took action against illegal parked vehicles and also warned shopkeepers for making encroachment on road sides and also fined few shopkeepers for the violation.