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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Motorists demand another parking plaza in city

By Khalid Iqbal
November 13, 2018

Rawalpindi: The project of Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation (RMC) to construct a parking plaza on Jinnah Road (City Saddar Road) has gone to cold storage for over one year while motorists as per routine facing difficulties in finding out space to park their vehicle around Raja Bazaar. The state land of 13-kanal at the site of old offices of Municipal Corporation near Fawara Chowk which was chosen to construct a parking plaza was vacant for more than 14 years without any untilisation in this regard.

In most big cities, parking your car or bike can be a challenge especially if there are a few designated parkings and ever-increasing encroachments leave no space for vehicles on the roadside. But in Rawalpindi, motorists park their car or motorcycles wherever there is space.

The RMC had shifted its offices from the building constructed on13 kanals and 11 marlas in 2004. Since then, the premises is vacant and is being used as a Suzuki and wagon stand from which the RMC is collecting Rs4.5 million parking fee per year.

The Town Officer (Planning) Shahzad Haider told ‘The News’ that it was necessary to construct a parking plaza on state land to remove all private parking on roads. We had decided to construct a modern parking plaza where all kinds of vehicles will be parked here. But, this project has gone in cold storage for over 1 year, he claimed. In fact, there is total 37 kanals state owned land including 14 kanals of the Rawalpindi Tehsil Offices and 10 kanals of the CIA police office commonly known as Kotawali. We had decided to construct a parking plaza on 13 kanal land to ease atmosphere of city, he said.

He also said that the cart pushers also creating difficulties for smooth flow of traffic so we had planned to construct a separate portion for them to stand in parking plaza. There is a dire need to construct another parking plaza in the area as the present parking plaza under the control of the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) is unable to accommodate the vehicles.

As per plan, the parking plaza will be four to five-storey and will be constructed on a build and operate basis with the private party. Former provincial government had given the green signal to start the project at that time but this welfare project is not started for over 1 year.

While talking to ‘The News’ people belong to different walks of life said that wrong and double parking are the main hurdle in smooth flow of traffic on various roads of city as illegal and wrong parking couple with ever-increasing encroachments at footpaths and roadsides are not only affecting smooth movement of pedestrians but also aggravating traffic flow in all business hubs of the city and cantonment board localities.

Muhammad Bilal, a motorist said that there was no space to park even a single car in parking plaza near Fawara Chowk under control of RDA, and traffic wardens do not allow parking vehicles on roadside, on violation of their orders the issue challan, he said. Sana Hameed, appealed the concerned authority should construct another parking plaza to resolve this serious issue in city bazaars.