Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Merchants encroach upon parking space

With merchants refusing space in front of their shops and police enforcing the parking rule, motorists are left in the lurch, write M. Soundariya Preetha and V.S. PALANIAPPAN

Locating a parking space in a shopping area in the peak hours is certainly no easy job for a motorist. When merchants place footpath boards and scooterists take on to haphazard parking, wordy duels and rule violations are no surprise leading to more confusion rather than road discipline.

While it is proving to be a common problem in all commercial areas across the city, the problem is far worse in the West Sub-Division of Coimbatore City.

It was about 6 p.m. on a bylane in R.S. Puram. On one side of the road, a board said it was parking space for two-wheelers and on the other side it was for four-wheelers. On the side marked for two-wheelers, a scooterist who tried to find a parking place in front of a commercial complex had to face resistance from a merchant as the former wanted to park his vehicle in front of the shop.

The scooterist, who tried to abide by the traffic rules enforced by the City Police, had to go through the uncomfortable situation of facing the wrath of the merchant. Adding to the woes of inadequate parking space was the haphazard parking.

The merchants have their grievance - they need space in front of their shops for the shoppers to come in. The vehicle owners need adequate space to have their vehicles parked safely till they complete their tasks.

Sympathising with the merchants who fear losing business because of the parking of vehicles in front of the commercial complex, the city police offered them concession by introducing the system of shifting the parking sides during alternate months. The merchants place footpath boards made of either iron grills or wooden planks just along the platform in front of their shops under the pretext of giving way for the shoppers to enter.

It could be accepted or understood, if such a measure is resorted to in one place for an entire complex. But, when every merchant resorts to this practice, the motorists are literally left with no place to park their vehicles in a city like Coimbatore, which has inadequate common parking facility. The shop owners in many areas fail to understand the fact that the motorists are forced to park their vehicles on the roads only because of the failure of the builders to provide parking space.

When the attention of the City Police Commissioner, C.K. Gandhi Rajan, was drawn towards the issue, he assured to initiate adequate action to ensure parking place for the motorists besides protection for their vehicles. Placing of boards in the footpaths will amount to encroaching of the parking space.

The Commissioner said that traffic police officers in every police station limit would be asked to study the situation in all the parking lots and initiate remedial measures.

Police would ensure the access way to the shops and commercial complexes by clearly earmarking the place for such footpath boards rather than every merchant encroaching upon the parking space in front of their shops leaving no space for the scooterists and motorists. Merchants would be first educated and sensitised on this issue and then failure to comply with would be dealt with by strict enforcement, he said.

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