‘Coaching classes to be sealed if parking not provided’

Nagpur: In a warning to several coaching classes operating without proper parking areas, the district administration has suggested to seal their premises, if they failed to make amendments within a month. It also suggested to repair all defunct traffic signals and designate parking/no-parking boards at all city areas. Furthermore, it called on for suspending licenses of 3,874 drivers for driving under inebriated conditions.
All these decisions were taken during a meeting conducted under divisional commissioner Anoop Kumar on February 12 for decongesting the city roads and resolve parking problems. It was convened as per the directives from the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court while hearing a suo motu PIL (No. 5/2016) where it had taken cognisance of a fatal accident involving a 15 year-old boy, who dashed off against a middle-aged woman and suffered serious head injuries.

A division bench comprising justices Bhushan Dharmadhikari and Swapna Joshi then directed the authorities to implement all suggestions as far as possible to improve the situation.

The government submitted minutes of the meeting in the HC on Wednesday where it was informed that 12 out of a 66 coaching classes, have arranged for parking spaces, while the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) issued notices to the remaining 61.

The traffic department stated that about 27,783 cases of drunken driving were recorded, while 52 of them booked as repeat offenders. Of these, licenses of 3,874 offenders would be suspended.

In order to curb the stray animal menace, the NMC proposed 44.06 acres of land for an animal shelter in Wathoda as part of the Nandgram Project. The report prepared for the project indicates that the shelter will be able to house 4,680 animals.

DCP (traffic) Chaitanya S suggested that a secondary bus depot in the outskirts of the city is not necessary as the land allotted for the Morbhavan bus stand can be utilized better. He added that Morbhavan can be used for MSRTC buses plying from the city to Chandrapur, Wardha, Yavatmal, Nanded, Amravati, Akola, Morshi and Warud i.e. to west and north. While the secondary bust stop will serve buses to Bhandara, Gondia, Gadchiroli, Bramhapuri, Vadsa.

The NMC and MSRTC operate 600 and 800 buses respectively many of which have to be parked along the road near Sitabuldi and Ganeshpeth. In order to alleviate congestion on public roads, the NMC has suggested to acquire 27,000 square meters of land from Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth (PDKV) near Morbhavan to utilize it to park NMC buses.

It was also advised that the private buses coming via Chhindwara Road will stop at the transport plaza near Pili Nadi. An appeal will also be made to acquire land on Amravati and Wardha highways to build transport plazas for private buses. A fee will be charged by the NMC to private transport companies for use of these plazas.

A special squad comprising of two police officials and a local corporator will continue to make rounds in schools, colleges and coaching classes to check for erring students.

The commissioner instructed authorities to strictly follow HC’s guidelines of ensuring students commuting to colleges, schools and coaching classes follow traffic rules.