The parking lots of Ranchi have shrinked under the pressure of increasing number of vehicles.
Everyday thousands of vehicles run into the commercial and busy zones of the city stretching from Kutchery Chowk to Rajendra Chowk, but with no refuge to park cars and bikes. Increasing traffic and scarcity of parking lots in Ranchi has immensely added to traffic crisis and has made public more agitated about their parking.
Ranchi has about six parking lots provided by Municipal Corporation in the busiest region from Kutchery Chowk to Sujata Chowk, which includes only two parking lots in Kutchery road near Jaipal Singh stadium and Subhash Chowk with capacity not more than approx.150 vehicles together.
The parking space near Firayalal Chowk is largest in terms of capacity while the rest three are smaller with a combined capacity of 150 vehicles. The other major parking space is opposite to the Church Complex and has capacity for approx. 250 vehicles. Most of the parking places in Ranchi fall in the category- private, owned by Malls and complexes.
Most People in Ranchi don’t want to park their vehicles in mall parking places as parking in public places helps in saving money and is also consumes less time in parking in and out. Apart from this people also get dismayed in getting proper place and park wrongly. “Despite making effort to park the vehicles judiciously people park their bikes and cars in non-parking zones, often disturbing the road decorum,” said a shopkeeper.
Another astonishing thing that can be noticed in Ranchi - Vendors park their carts and stretch their carpets over parking lot to make business to which traffic police shows no reaction. “The vendors are incorrigible and despite our chasing them they continue so,” said a traffic police constable, Ajay.
“There is no doubt that whole of the Ranchi has low number of parking lots which often leads to traffic congestion and is difficult to manage parking with scarce place for increasing number of vehicles in town, but we try to manage traffic as per the orders and instruction from higher authorities. We try our best to manage traffic but it’s the duty of Government to plan and control the crisis,” he added.