Karnataka - Mysore   

Where to park Mysore’s four lakh vehicles?

— PHOTO: M.A. SRIRAM

difficult: The woes of motorists who park at the Suburban bus-stand in the city have increased after the closure of the parking zone near Wellington Lodge compound on Irwin Road. .

Mysore: The increase in the number of vehicles in Mysore in the last ten years has reduced the available parking space, particularly in commercial areas and public places such as bus-stands and government offices.

Gone are the days when motorists used to ride to a business hub and park their vehicles anywhere in the parking lot. Nowadays, motorists have to consider themselves lucky if they find an spot in the parking lot.

The parking woes endured by motorists in the city have been attributed to lack of farsightedness and vision by city planners, who made little effort to create additional parking space though the number of vehicles kept increasing.

Even though, at present, about 36,000 vehicles are added every year, with at least 100 vehicles being registered every day, the authorities have paid no heed to calls for improving parking facilities.

“The number of vehicles in Mysore is about 4 lakh presently,” Assistant Road Transport Officer R. Dubey told The Hindu.

“There is no let up in the number of vehicles being registered every day. We have opened another office. While one office registers about 65 to 70 vehicles, the other registers about 35 to 40 vehicles every day. If the registrations at both offices are taken into account, a minimum of 100 vehicles are added to the city every day,” he added.

Motorists, particularly owners of four-wheelers, rarely manage to find parking on D. Devaraj Urs Road and Sayyaji Rao Road as well as at emerging business hubs such as Kalidasa Road.

On D. Devaraj Urs Road and Sayyaji Rao Road, shopkeepers park their four-wheelers in front of their shops, leaving little space for shoppers to park their vehicles.

Shopkeepers are believed to occupy at least 60 per cent of the parking space on D. Devaraj Urs Road. A police official said that shop owners’ cars, which were found parked in front of their shops from 10 a.m. to 9.30 p.m., deprived shoppers of parking space.

“A shopper will park his car therefor about 20 minutes to half an hour. But most of the cars parked on D. Devaraj Urs Road are seen there from morning till night,” he added. Many people, who drove to D. Devaraj Urs Road and Sayyaji Rao Rao and adjoining business hubs in Shivarampet and Narayan Shastri Road during the recent festivals had to drive away after failing to find parking space even in the adjoining lanes and bylanes.

A few shopkeepers admitted that their practice of parking their vehicles in front of their shops would not only cause inconvenience to shoppers, but would ultimately hurt their business as well.

“It will hurt only us. If there is no parking space for shoppers, they will go elsewhere to shop,” said Mohsin Sait, proprietor of Progressive Visions on D. Devaraj Urs Road.

The woes of motorists who park at the Suburban bus-stand in the city have increased after the closure of the parking zone near Wellington Lodge compound on Irwin Road.

Even if daily commuters manage to find parking space at the bus-stand, motorists, who go to the bus-stand to pick up or drop passengers have to struggle to find parking. The plight of people going to the bus-stand in four-wheelers is worse as there is no designated parking space for cars on the premises of the bus stand or anywhere in the vicinity.

Though the basements of commercial complexes are supposed to be reserved for parking, the rule has been observed more in breach than in practice.

Very few commercial buildings have reserved the basements for parking.

With the officials of the civic body turning a blind eye, most owners of commercial buildings have even set up shops in the basement and rented them out.

Because commercial complex owners have failed to provide parking, motorists are forced to park their vehicles on the footpath or the roadside. This in turn affects the movement of pedestrians and vehicles.

Though the issue has figured regularly in the meeting of the Mysore City Corporation (MCC), the civic body is yet to take any action.

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