The century-old Karimnagar town, which has been included in the Smart City programme for taking up various development works, is a free-for-all — to encroach on the roads for selling vegetables and fruits or for parking auto-rickshaws illegally and causing inconvenience to road users.
Even as the authorities are celebrating the Pattana Pragathi programme with hype, issues concerning people of the town are being neglected. Taking advantage of lethargy on the part of officials, auto drivers are erecting signboards, illegally converting roadsides into auto-stands.
In the Karimnagar RTC bus station area where already the authorities allocated auto stand, auto drivers have encroached upon all four sides of the main road. The illegal parking of autos on the roads was denying pedestrians the basic right to walk safely on footpaths.
Auto are being parked illegally at RTC bus station main entrance and near the in-gate and in the area adjoining Andhra bank complex and opposite the ZP office with signboards erected, causing inconvenience to road users.
Peruka Nagamohan, a retired headmaster of Jyothinagar locality, criticised the traffic police and municipal authorities for remaining mute spectators ti illegal parking of autos.
Expressing similar views, Lok Satta Udyama Samstha district president N Srinivas demanded that the traffic police remove illegal auto-stands in the town and regulate traffic. Strict enforcement of helmet rule alone would not prevent accidents, he said.
