By converting roadsides into their work space, auto accessory shops are fast emerging as traffic road blocks at quite a few places in the city.
Until a few years back most of the auto accessory shops were situated in and around Othakadai, but new and bigger players have cropped up in a few other parts of the city in recent years.
While road space around the Perumbidugu Mutherayar statue continues to be constricted by vehicles parked in front of these shops, new shops have come to occupy vantage space along the Bharathidasan Salai and the Pattabiraman Pillai Street in recent years.
The shops, offering a range of services and products, attract a steady stream of vehicles every day. Most people on buying new vehicles head straight to the shops to get extra fittings and accessories fitted to their cars and two-wheelers. On auspicious days when registration of new vehicles is high, a large number of vehicles queue up in front of these shops. Most of these shops do not have a proper workshop and instead use the roads as their work space. Even if some have their own space, vehicles could be seen parked on the roads outside waiting their turn.
With vehicles going in and out of the shops regularly, traffic snarls are frequent. The problem has been acute in towards the Pattabiraman Pillai Street-Puthur High Road junction and also near the BSNL office near Head Post Office where queues of vehicles could be seen parked throughout the day in front of such shops. With a couple of hospitals located right in front, at least half-a-dozen vehicles could be seen parked at any given point of time on the narrow road.
In recent days, vehicles could be seen parked right in front of the Tiruchi Taluk Office on the Bharathidasan Road with workers of an accessories shop located on the opposite side going about their task nonchalantly. The workers also litter the road with plastic wastes, points out a Corporation employee.
“Most of these shops including the petty shops that do up number plates and other decorative works on vehicles have no workspace at all. All the vehicles that visit the shop are parked in front of them and pedestrians could not been walk along the roadsides. It is time the authorities ensured that these shops worked within their own space,” observes N.Siva, a resident of Karumandapam.
Though small traders, who encroach upon public space corner pedestrian pavements in front of their shops have been the target of fitful eviction drives taken up in the city, auto accessory shops which brazenly occupy a significant portion of the roadsides have failed to catch the eye of the authorities, regrets the owner of a business establishment.
