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Parking: police move to bring in order

Photo: Ashoke Chakrabarty

Acting tough: A car being towed away from a no-parking zone in Bhubaneswar on Thursday. —

BHUBANESWAR: With unauthorised parking fast turning out to be a big headache, the city police, for the first time, let the towing crane roll down on busy roads of the Capital city and pick up of few cars on Thursday.

In the morning, a group of traffic police descended on Sahid Nagar locality and made announcements cautioning people about wrong parking and their proposed punitive action. The announcement, however, went unheard.

The crane randomly picked up a car and towed it away to Sahid Nagar Police Station. Though the violation under Section 174 of the relevant Act called for a penalty of Rs. 500, the owner, who was a elderly person, was let off with a fine of Rs. 100.

As the crane moved on, curious onlookers lined up on the two sides of the busy Janpath road to witness the action.

The situation turned worse near Gurudwar. When the crane tried to tow away a car, it faced opposition and soon there was chaos as traffic came to a standstill.

“The traffic controlling authority does not have the towing crane. The State Transport Department lent the vehicle to be used for clearing cars parked at wrong places,” traffic police inspector Anup Patnaik said.

He said that since towing away of vehicles was implemented for the first time, the action was limited and random for generating awareness among people. “Once we have the infrastructure, we will be going for full-scale drive,” Mr. Patnaik said.

The police have not so far identified vacant space where all the towed vehicles would be kept. As of now, the vehicles would be towed away to the premises of the nearest police station.

Traffic police said that the action would continue during the festival period.

Several car owners ridiculed the police action. “We don’t know which are prohibited zones for parking in the city.

Why did the traffic police resort to direct action without going for prior awareness campaign?” Pradymna Das, a bank employee, questioned.

Many others came down heavily on the civic authority for granting trading licence to shops without verifying the existence of parking area. As of now, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) officially notified two road stretches as prohibited zones for parking.

It had also failed to convince drivers to park their vehicles at designated parking lots.

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