Last month, in an effort led by Vice President Mr. Jasjit Singh, the Managing Committee of the Society decided to crack down on the traffic situation in Panchshila Park. It started with a clean-up of cars parked in the N and S block service roads running parallel to the outer ring road.
Traffic laws do not permit parking of cars on the N and S block service roads, adjoining the wired barricade separating the walking path running parallel to the outer ring road (vehicles can be parked next to the houses but not across the service road). Vehicles parked there can be challaned. For many years, however, using that space to park cars has been a habit for many, especially visitors to the commercial establishments situated on these service roads, like banks and hospital clinics etc. Because these roads fall within the colony’s jurisdiction, hardly any challans are issued. The net result has been a chaotic situation on these two service roads, with cars parked on both sides, and it has become virtually impossible for vehicles to move, with the space to drive reduced to less than two lanes equivalent.
The other ongoing issues that add to this trouble are that houses even with stilt parking choose to park their cars outside, many houses have cordoned off the area outside their house with strategically placed earthen pots or shrubs preventing anyone from parking and, last but not the least, there is a mushrooming of colony cars with the redevelopment of plots into multiple apartments, each with a number of cars. The regular visitors to commercial establishments like Max Hospital, Banks like ICICI, HDFC and Kotak, a few private clinics, add to this chaos.
In the crackdown, some of the Managing Committee members were personally seen supervising the entire project. Additional security was deployed. An arrangement of issuing challans by the traffic police based on photos of erring vehicles sent to them online proved to be a master stroke. Over the last few weeks, both the service roads bear a totally new look, with hardly any cars on either side of the service road, virtually across its entire length.
Whilst a number of residents have been ecstatic about this development, some are obviously worried about the absence of a whole systems thinking approach to the problem. A number of questions are being asked. “Where will our guests park their cars?”, is one of them for example. “How will visitors to these commercial establishments be handled?”, is another. After all, we only have permitted these establishments to come up and many senior citizens wanting to use these services would now find it difficult to park their vehicle, do their business and return to their homes. “Why don’t we crackdown on the plot owners who deliberately cover the outside of their house with pots, shrubs and bricks even when that land belongs to the state and not to them?”, lament a few others. And let us not forget that this compliance comes at a huge cost of deploying extra guards to keep the parking in check and to guide those trying to park their vehicle as visitors to someone’s house or the commercial establishments.
There are clearly larger issues that the entire city needs to handle, covering these aspects, and our colony is no exception.
Whilst this drive has no doubt brought a temporary relief to the main service roads, making driving there much more efficient and risk free, the Jury is out on the wholesomeness and permanence of the solution. We are hopeful that, over time, other aspects will also be handled, making this a permanent hassle-free arrangement.
by Vinit Taneja (Member of the SMG)
