Awaiting repairs outside workshops, flood hit vehicles trigger jams

Traffic Police seeks dist admin intervention

The flood-hit vehicles –awaiting repairs –dumped outside various workshops have emerged as a cause of traffic jams in the City.
The September floods not only devastated thousands of buildings but also left a similar big number of vehicles damaged –repairs of which is expected to take six to eight months.
For now most of the space around the workshops particularly authorized service stations is flooded with vehicles.
On the Parim Pora –Ahtwajan highway alone – a hub of such units around 15,000 vehicles are believed to be parked outside the service stations.
“This is an unusual situation and we are dealing with the unimaginable looses which our valued customers faced. All space inside our workshops is already packed. And even though we took vacant land on lease at multiple places, it couldn’t suffice the need for space and finally we were left with no options but to get vehicles parked along the highway,” said manager of a service station on the Hyder Pora highway.
The roadside parking of big number of vehicles has chocked the motorways. At places like Hyder Pora, Nowgam and Teng Pora frequent girdlocks are witnessed especially in the peak hours. Obsevers said more deployment of police at the congested spots could be of help. “Police can effectively regulate traffic if it’s deployed in strength at such busy spots because otherwise congestion causes slow down and slow down causes jams. Why cant the Armed Police services be utilized for the task?” asked a retired Traffic Police official living in south City.
While admitting the problem, Traffic Police said it was difficult to find a solution. “At a time when people have already suffered a lot, it won’t be ethical to tow away damaged vehicles the way we used to counter wrong parking in the past. This is a unique situation, a crisis, which needs remedies beyond the routine,”   SP Traffic Hasseb Ur Rehman told Greater Kashmir.
He said the problem could be sorted out by the intervention of district administration. “If the civil administration coordinates with  us in this regard and calls a meeting of the stakeholders, some via media can be made,” the official said.
The District Development Commissioner Farooq Ahmed Shah said the matter would be looked into. “We will soon depute a team of officials to find a remedy to the problem,” he said.
To a question he said “We will try to find out some viable open space where such additional chunk of vehicles can be parked.”

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