Forced to leave cars on the street

Sunil Batra parks his car on Pushta Road in east Delhi every day and walks over a kilometre to his shop in the Gandhi Nagar market. He leaves his car on the road knowing it is not a parking site and there will be no parking attendants.

Like him, hundreds of traders of the Gandhi Nagar market park their cars and go to their shops without any worry that their car will get stolen or towed away. “We have been parking our car on the road for years. Where else would we go?” asked Mr. Batra, who runs a garments shop.

Pushta Road, which is 100-foot wide, is mostly clogged as cars are parked on both sides of the carriageway. On some days, the foot-over-bridge on the stretch is used by two-wheelers as a parking lot.

“Gandhi Nagar market is Asia’s biggest wholesale market. There are more than 500 traders, but no parking facility. At one point, the parking on the main road was an authorised one but the site was blacklisted by the East Delhi Municipal Corporation as it leads to traffic jams. We had asked for alternate site and it was given,” said Anil Bajpai, area MLA.

To sort out the parking mess on east Delhi’s Pushta Road, particularly the stretch opposite to the Gandhi Nagar market, the Public Works Department had proposed a multi-level parking lot. “A proposal to redesign the road was sent, which includes construction of a multi-level parking lot. We have identified a parking site and the estimates were also prepared, around ₹45 crore. It is awaiting clearance,” said a PWD official.

As per the proposal, there will be a parking lot, a designated loading and unloading area and streetscaping.