Local traders at loggerheads with NDMC over plan change for trial

The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) will start experimenting with the plan to restrict entry of cars in the inner circle  of Connaught Place (CP) on Sunday and Monday on pilot basis.

While the council has claimed that before launching the experiment, traders have been taken into confidence and a fresh plan was also discussed, however, traders alleged that civic body is adopting a different plan than what traders had agreed upon.

CP traders had told the council that the plan will impact their business. “A meeting was held between council officials and traffic commissioner for smooth operations during the experiment launch of the plan,” said NDMC official.

The mock drill will start from 7:30 am on Saturday in CP — the iconic market which is a hub of pubs, eateries, restaurants and shops where people go out to spend good time especially in weekends.  .

“Seven radials are opened and six wardens will be deployed to facilitate visitors. These wardens will be there to update visitors to reach parking destinations,” council official said. Apart from this, direction signage and parking destinations are also available for the visitors,” said the official. 

While the plan is prepared by three agencies comprising employees of enforcement agency, local police and traffic police, personnel of these agencies will be deployed at all seven radials. Pick and drop facilities are also available for senior citizens and disabled persons at Haldi Ram, State Entry Raod and Palika Bazar and single land parking in the middle circle is closed.

Traders had raised objection to the plan following which the NDMC had tweaked its earlier plan, which was to make the inner circle completely car-free, to focus on pedestrianising the blocks but giving access to all parking lots in the inner and outer circles to car users.

“They are now adopting a different plan than what was agreed upon in the previous meeting.

As per the plan discussed with NDMC officials, it was decided that vehicles will be given entry only through Janpath to inner circle, and from there they can access all parking lots.

“The exit will only be through Baba Kharak Singh Marg. Other entry and exit routes will be blocked for cars. But now they are not adopting this plan,” Vinay Behel, the treasurer of New Delhi Traders Association (NDTA) said .

He said the association will stage a protest if the civic body doesn’t amend the plan as decided or make decisions without keeping the NDTA in confidence.

Connaught Place market was one of the locations initially chosen for pedestrianising in the national capital, along with Chandni Chowk. In January 2017, when Venkaiah Naidu was the urban development minister, he had conceptualised the idea, which was taken forward by the NDMC.

However, the plan never took off owing to strong opposition from the traders’ association. The NDMC had earlier this month announced that it will do a trial run of the plan for two consecutive weekends