On Saturday, when the city roads were remarkably free owing to Bakrid festival, the stretch from Punjagutta crossroads up to Somajiguda was exceptionally chock-a-block with vehicles, especially four wheelers.
Interestingly, most of them were headed to a newly opened jewellery store near the Somajiguda junction, which had been advertising widely about its “affordable prices” of gold ornaments. The holiday gold rush has kept the traffic police on tenterhooks, with three of them including a sub-inspector devoting their time to man the traffic exclusively in front of the jewellery store.
With the mammoth store failing to provide enough parking for the four wheelers streaming in relentlessly, quite a few customers waited outside, or parked their cars on the road, worsening the traffic situation. Many vehicles were diverted to the parking of ‘The Plaza’ hotel, run by the Telangana State Tourism Development Corporation. A shuttle service was also pressed in to fetch the customers from the hotel. Customers arrived from as far as Kapra to test the showroom’s claim of cheaper prices.
It was not clear whether the jewellery store had paid for availing the parking lot of the hotel, or if it was given free of cost. When sought his version, the Joint Managing Director, TSTDC, Sumeet Singh, and the General Manager Suni Kumar both said they were not aware of the situation.
The 1.3 lakh square feet jewellery showroom is equipped with parking at two levels, which could accommodate about 60 to 70 four wheelers at the maximum.
“The showroom’s parking space is full. A new car is arriving every minute. We are diverting all the spill over vehicles to The Plaza, but don’t know how long it will last,” said the Sub-Inspector (Traffic) J.Nageshwar Rao.
