The newly constructed cement concrete road between Royal Market and Taj Mahal is fast becoming an example of wasted public money, with illegal parking taking over most of the motorable stretch.
Every few minutes, the sound of an ambulance siren rises through the traffic, only to fade as the vehicle gets stuck behind a bus that cannot move forward or steer to either side without hitting parked vehicles. In such moments, every second feels like a gamble with someone’s life.
The road was meant to ease congestion along one of the busiest corridors in the city, especially because it runs opposite Hamidia Hospital, the largest government-run medical facility in the state capital. After months of delay, the road was finally laid—but today, it has become a slow-moving parking strip.
The stretch also passes by the historic Taj-ul-Masajid, one of the largest mosques in Asia and a major tourist attraction. Visitors, hospital traffic, and pedestrians now all compete for space on a road that was never meant to handle this kind of misuse.
A major reason for the mess is the number of private hospitals that have come up in the area, many of them built on land reclaimed from the Nawab Siddique Hasan lake. With no space for parking, they have taken over the roadside.
Locals say the hospital owners are well-connected and easily block any action. “The authorities don’t even issue warnings anymore,” says a shopkeeper. “Towing is out of the question.”
If the administration cannot remove or impound the vehicles that have taken over this road, then what was the point of building it in the first place? Without enforcement, this project stands as a glaring example of public money gone to waste.
