No solution to congestion, parking in and around Rourkela

ROURKELA: Though vehicular traffic and parking issues across the city have been going from bad to worse, the Sundargarh district administration seems to be taking its own time to come up with a solution even when the upcoming Men’s Hockey World Cup 2023 is just two months away.

The Rourkela Chamber of Commerce & Industry (RCCI) president Subrata Patnaik said, after a recent meeting with the administration it had been working to provide five acre of land at Kalunga to Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) to shift its primary stock yard from near Doorsanchar Bhawan in order to stop entry of multi-axle trucks to the city through the ring road of RSP.

“The administration has also asked the RSP to ensure movement of heavy vehicles to the secondary stock yard through the plant and  create new entry points near Tarapur for movement of heavy vehicles to the plant for loading and unloading. But nothing has been done to shift the railway warehouse at Malgodam out of the city,” Patnaik informed.  

Sources said, amid failure of the administration to set up a Wholesale Market Yard at Balughat and truck terminal at Beldihi to stop entry of heavy vehicles to the congested main road, it is highly essential to widen three key connecting roads. However, the city’s formation is incidentally linear and presently entry to the one-way traffic main road is allowed only through the MS Marg and Power House Road.

Also, it has been long proposed to widen the connecting MS Marg, Plant Site Road and Power House Road to allow direct connection with the Main road, Mahtab Road and Ring road for diversion of traffic. Vehicles are to be parked at the parking lots along the Mahtab Road and battery-operated vehicles to ferry shoppers to the main road. 

Sundargarh District Planning Committee Chairman and Rourkela MLA Sarada Prasad Nayak said that all the above proposals have been discussed with the administration and hopefully the traffic issue would streamline before the hockey event. 

“For the time being the administration is focused on reducing vehicular traffic movement to the two stock yards of RSP,” informed Rourkela ADM and RMC Commissioner Subhankar Mohapatra adding, other proposals are also in consideration to ease the traffic problem of the city.