Security of their families and struggling to find parking spots close to home are now a day-to-day problem for residents of South Extension. Most of the area residents complain that visitors to commercial establishments in the market outside opt to park their vehicles outside their residences, leaving homeowners to hunt for unoccupied lots away from home. Residents fear that this unchecked entry of cars can even impact the security of their neighbourhood. Moreover, in a more dangerous consequence, illegally parked vehicles on both sides of the roads can cause problems for the fire tenders as authorities fear that in case of emergency this could prove fatal.
South Extension is one of South Delhi's biggest market places, but traders in this market have also been experiencing a decline in sales as customers have been turning back due to lack of parking space. So to tackle the problem head-on, both traders and residents have been demanding a proper parking management system, where an underground or multi-level parking is established to manage the increasing number of vehicles.
"Most of us find it difficult to park to our own cars in front of our houses. Moreover, we do not know if the vehicles parked outside our house is safe; there may be bomb planted in it," said Vinod Gupta, General Secretary, N block RWA South Extension 1.
Some senior citizen residents who can't walk suffer the most, as the visitors park right outside their gates, making it difficult from them to get dropped at their homes.
"My mother is 96 year old now, so we take her to a nearby hospital once a week for checkup, but most of the times, while returning she has to walk from far just because someone has blocked the way with their car," said VK Mittal, resident of South Extension part-2.
However, the visitors who park their vehicles in these residential blocks have a different story to tell. According to them, the scarcity of parking in the commercial establishments is reason they are forced to park their vehicles in the residential blocks.
"If you blame visitors for the parking woes, then tell us, we won't return to the market. But the issue here is that authorities and the traders have failed to provide parking to their customers which is why we have park in residential blocks," said Sanjeev Madan, a shopper in the market.