File Pic of one such Traffic Jam
Nagpur.
All roads in Nagpur appears to be shrinking in width with the alarming rise in the number of transporting machines including two, three and four-wheelers. There are bottle-necks at many places where heavy vehicular traffic is observed. This often causes chaos.
A similar traffic chaos is witnessed on daily basis at Shankar Nagar Square, thanks to the encroachment by a restaurant and sweet shop run by city’s well known Haldiram’s group. Owing to this brazing gulping of road area, the stretch that brings traffic from Law College Square or Laxmi Bhawan Square has become evidently narrow near the Haldiram store located near Shankar Nagar Square.
Haldiram’s gobbles up parking space; builds kitchen, stores
To add to that, the management of Haldiram has utilized the space in the basement allocated for parking for making kitchen and store-rooms. This has reduced the space for basement parking for all the two-wheelers and four-wheelers. This causes the space at the basement to be filled with limited vehicles especially the cars. Now, the remaining cars have to be parked somewhere. If the vehicle is chauffeur driven, the vehicle can be parked at some distance, however, if the owner of the car himself or herself is driving the vehicle, then he or she usually parks the vehicle on the road side near the Haldiram’s, which in-turn reduces the already narrow roads. The scene can be witnessed on almost every-week-ends.
Mate Square is no different
Another startling example of the traffic congestion is at Mate Square, where traffic coming from Hingna, IT Park and VNIT flows towards Deekshabhoomi, Laxmi Nagar or Bajaj Nagar. The commuters face tough time traversing through this stretch near Mate square, since the road (which has been divided with a road divider) is very narrow.
Nagpur Today View
First thing, we ask to our readers is should these so called prestigious hotels and restaurants be allowed to go scot free, for making money at the cost of citizen’s inconvenience. While they are caught on the wrong side of the law, it’s high time such big fish be brought to book to set an example before others who are acting in similar fashion. As the city grows in leaps and bounds, the number of two-wheelers and four-wheelers too are increasing. In order to provide a decent width where at least three cars can travel simultaneously, many of the shops and building will have to sacrifice some land. The government should work towards acquiring some of the land where bottle-necks are usually seen, so that there is a space for smooth road traffic.
… Samuel Gunasekharan
