Residents feel Ludhiana is not prepared to handle festive season traffic

LUDHIANA: As the festive season is about to kick off from Monday with the onset of Navratras followed by other festivities throughout the month of October, there would be a great hustle and bustle in the city markets. However, the civic officials and traffic cops have no concrete plan to cater this rush. The city residents are, therefore, demanding that authorities should come out with some planning. At least, there should be designated parking sites so that people could park their vehicles and go for shopping.
Last year, it was suggested to create temporary parking sites and a few suggested sites were GLADA land at Ferozepur Road opposite the mini secretariat (for tackling the rush in Ghumar Mandi), BL Kapoor hospital and Glada land in Old Court Chowk (for tackling rush in Chaura Bazaar), and temporary site at the backside of Mohan Dai Oswal Hospital. But these sites too, remained only under discussion and no arrangements were made.
Dusinessman and resident of Sarabha Nagar Rahul Verma said, “During the festival season, people will actually have a tough time as the markets already remain jam-packed, and then there are certain locations like Sherpur Chowk, Tajpur flyover, Pakhowal Road railway overbridge, Aarti Chowk and Bharat Nagar Chowk, where construction work is also going on. Therefore, it will create a tough time for the residents as well as the traffic police.” He demanded that authorities should prepare some traffic diversion plans to avoid the rush.
Civil Lines resident and shopkeeper Sunil Prabhakar said, “The city lacks proper parking arrangement and in most of the markets, parking is on the roadside. There is a need to make markets public-friendly but here, instead of developing more parking sites, the officials dropped such important projects.” He said that on routine days, there was extreme rush in the markets, and when festivals start, it would double.
Municipal corporation secretary Tajinder Singh Panchi said, “There is no planning, but we are already clearing the temporary encroachments from the roadsides and from the past two years, we haven’t been allowing the stalls at roads.” He added they would not harass the small shopkeepers, but in case there’s violation of rules at a large scale, they would lift the material kept on the roads and also impose penalty.
Joint commissioner of police (traffic) Gurdial Singh said, “We have curbed the movement of autorickshaws and cars from Girja Ghar chowk to Ghas Mandi chowk, and then we will ensure parking at roadside in proper manner. The wrongly parked vehicles will be towed away.” He said people also needed to understand their responsibility and park sensibly.
Notably, during festival season, long queues of vehicles could be seen in the markets and people remain stuck in their vehicles for hours. The industrial town does not have adequate parking arrangements and the civic body could do nothing for parking lots.