Almost three years after a proposal to construct autorickshaw stands at 53 sites across the city was mooted and later dumped by the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram, the Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) has now decided to re-look into it giving hope to the autorickshaw drivers in the Millennium City.
The long-pending demand of the autorickshaw drivers caught the attention of the GMDA after the Haryana Auto Chalak Sangathan office-bearers wrote to the city’s Mayor Madhu Azad, the MCG and the GMDA officials last month to reconsider it.
J.S. Sindhu, GMDA, (Engineer, Traffic) said the agency had received the demand from the auto union for the stands and a proposal was being drafted for the perusal of the Chief Executive Officer to take the matter forward.
Pending demand
Haryana Auto Chalak Sangathan’s state president Mahavir Singh said the demand for autorickshaw stands in the city was first raised by them before the then Police Commissioner Navdeep Virk when the police went after the haphazardly parked autos in the city and issued challans in large numbers.
“When we told the Commissioner that there were no designated parking spaces for the autos, he wrote to the then MCG Commissioner T.L. Satyaprakash to look into our demand,” said Mr. Singh.
The union then submitted a list of 53 places across the city, including near the major metro stations and the hospitals, for designating them as autorickshaw stands. All the sites are located on the government land with most of them owned by the MCG and the Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran.
On April 21, 2016, the then MCG Commissioner wrote to Reikan Engineering Consulting asking them to conduct the survey of the proposed sites.
On May 30, 2016, the company submitted drawings of 43 autorickshaw sites to the MCG, but the project could not see the light of the day because of the transfer of Mr. Satyaprakash and Mr. Virk in quick succession.
Mr. Singh said the then Senior Town Planner, MCG, Sudhir Chauhan had verbally assured them to construct auto stands at a cost of ₹10-20 lakh per stand with facilities such as pre-paid booths, washrooms and drinking water.
He said that constructing auto stands was a win-win situation for all since it would rid the city of unwarranted traffic jam caused due to illegal parking of autos on the roadsides and also provide a designated space for the auto drivers to park their vehicles and take rest.
Vipin, an autorickshaw driver, said that he along with half-a-dozen more drivers had been parking their vehicle on the roadside near Rail Vihar in Sector 15 Part-II for the last five-six years. It often leads to traffic jams in the rush hours when the school buses come to pick and drop the children.
“The police often issue challans to us for parking on the roadsides, but the administration first needs to provide us designated spaces to park our vehicles,” argued Vipin.
Though illegally parked autos are a common sight in the city, the situation is worse outside the metro stations, especially the HUDA City Centre.
Despite several special drives by the traffic police, the auto drivers return to park their vehicles illegally on the roadsides in the absence of any legal parking spaces.