3 years on, Bhopal Municipal Corporation way off from choosing location

BHOPAL: Bhopal Municipal Corporation
(BMC) is sill a long way from deciding right location for a multi-level
parking in Mahrana Pratap Nagar. The search for proper location, which
had begun some three ago, is still not over.”We had proposed a
four-storied multi-level parking opposite Arch Manor hotel, but a month
ago we had to drop the plan,” BMC commissioner Rajneesh Shrivastava
said. “We dropped the idea due to legal complications and legal matter
takes a lot of time to get resolved,” he added.”The corporation
is looking for a proper location to develop multi-level parking in a
commercial hub of Bhopal, but, it will take some time as this area is
very congested,” Shrivastava said.

The construction of another
multi-level parking in MP Nagar Zone, I, which had begun five years, is
also on hold for the last three years. “Construction of the multi-level
parking had to be put on hold due to the corporation’s financial
crisis,” BJP corporator of MP Nagar area Surjeet Singh Chouhan said,
adding, “Multi-level parking project will also require some support from
Bhopal Development Authority (BDA). The work may take some more time to restart.”The official parking spaces in MP Nagar can accommodate only over a
1,000 four-wheelers and over 2,000 two-wheelers. Whereas, this place
needs parking facility for nearly 5,000 two-wheelers and over 2,000
four-wheelers,” official sources said.There are more than
10,000 commercial establishments, including hotels, banks, shops and
coaching classes in MP Nagar Zone I and II.

The authorized paid
parking areas, mapped by the Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) in busy
Maharana Pratap Nagar (MP Nagar) area include parking in front of
Hakeem’s hotel, Bapu ki Kutiya, Axis Bank and Batra Hospital.
But there are places in this zone where unauthorised people are
collecting parking fees by posing as authorised agents of the BMC.Sharing their daily struggle for parking, commuters in this busy
locality complain that they are facing inconvenience and blame the city
caretakers for ignoring the problem and for not taking any initiative to
streamline the traffic system.”Even though roads in MP Nagar
are wide enough, there is no place to drive. The multi-crore concrete
roads have been converted into parking lots,” said Amit Mathur and
Krishna Sharma, businessmen.”Being a commercial hub of the
city, either there should have been proper parking space or the civic
bodies should have made proper arrangements so that the vehicles are not
parked on the roads,” said Vaibhav Verma, a student.