Illegal parking: Police want CCTV cameras in Ambience underpass

GURUGRAM: Traffic police this week wrote to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to install CCTV cameras in the recently opened u-turn underpass near Ambience Mall at the Delhi-Gurugram border to penalise those illegally parking in the area.
The CCTV cameras will allow the police to issue e-challans through the day and eventually discourage people from parking inside the underpass – a practice that commuters say makes it an accident prone area.
“We carry out enforcement and issue challans inside the underpass regularly to penalise those parking vehicles, but this is not enough to prevent people from doing so,” Ravinder Singh Tomar, DCP (Traffic), said on Tuesday. “To stop this permanently, we have now written to the NHAI via email requesting them to install CCTV cameras inside the underpass, through which violations can be captured round the clock and e-challans issued,” he said.
A senior NHAI official confirmed that the authority has received a written request from the police. “But the installation of CCTV cameras is a civic facility, and it is the job of the civic authority that has installed such cameras in other places as well,” he said.
“However, we are looking into the matter and figuring out where they want the cameras installed. We will make an appropriate reply and discuss the issue with them to resolve it,” the official added. Opened in March this year, the 377-metre-long u-turn underpass serves commuters travelling from Gurugram towards Ambience mall and adjoining areas.
“Since it’s a U-turn underpass, there’s a blind right turn that curves.Anyone who is unfamiliar with the area will be taken by surprise and can easily ram the car into the stationary vehicles,” said Partha Chatterjee, a resident of Ambience Island.