We are on job to decongest the city roads: SMC Commissioner
Illegal occupation of footpaths and roads by street vendors coupled with wrong car parking has choked the already congested Hari Singh High Street.
Despite the clear instructions by the administration that the City Centre, Lal Chowk, must be completely decongested, one could see these vendors dotted along the footpaths and on roads at many places blocking both pedestrian as well as traffic movement to a large extent.
The wrong car parking especially in the area from Amira Kadal Bridge to Jahangir Chowk is adding to the chaos.
“ It is a narrow road from Amira Kadal to Jahangir Chowk and the presence of the vendors everywhere is causing tremendous inconvenience to the people,” many pedestrians told Kashmir Post.
He said that though the traffic has increased manifold in the past few decades, the roads remain the same, thus leading to congestion in the area.
They said that both society as well as the administration was guilty of this “mess.” “We need to adopt a civilized approach while parking vehicles and the government must, on its part, rehabilitate the street vendors somewhere else to rectify the problem,” they said.
Adil Ali, a rickshaw driver said that both people and administration was equally responsible for the problem in the area. “ For the whole day, we witness massive traffic mess across the city. Frequent traffic jams leave thousands of commuters stuck in traffic for hours and waste our precious time.”
Murtaza Khaliq, an MBA student said, “Traffic congestion has become a routine in our everyday life. Due to frequent traffic jams, student community suffers a lot.”
“We are the worst sufferers as they we are unable to reach their respective destinations on time. The unplanned work on Rambagh-Jehangir Chowk flyover has been adding to our woes from 2014 onwards,” he added.
Responding to the concerns raised by pedestrians and transporters, Dr Shafaqat Khan, Commissioner Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) said that they have shifted 90 percent of street vendors to other places. “Still some vendors come and occupy these busy streets and footpaths. But our teams are on job to vacate the city roads occupied by these vendors.”
Sargun Shukla, SSP Traffic Srinagar, while talking to the Rising Kashmir said that the department was making all efforts to reduce traffic congestions in and around the city. “We have raised a multi-level parking in Lal Chowk but people still park cars roads.”
“People behave irresponsibly, wherever they see open spaces, they start parking their cars. We are using lift-away carriers and regularly penalize people to deter them from parking their cars on roads” She said
