Motihari, May 18: Better keep your car at home if you are going to the bank before office in this town, else you could get late for work.

Thanks to unauthorised parking and encroachment of roads and pavements in front of banks on thoroughfares like Chhatauni Chowk, Gandhi Chowk and Gyan Babu Chowk, commuters and bank customers have to face traffic snarls everyday. Schoolchildren returning home in the afternoon, too, are not spared, often forced to wait in traffic jams for hours.

Canara Bank, Bank of India, State Bank of India, Axis Bank, Allahabad Bank, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda and Uttar Bihar Gramin Bank — all these financial institutions are located in this area.

Visitors to most of these banks and automated teller machine kiosks, located around this area, find private vehicles parked in front of them throughout the day.

The situation worsens around noon when schools give over and school buses that have no particular route try to negotiate the snarl wriggling their way through this road and that in their effort to drop the students home.

“We are caught in traffic jams while returning home everyday,” said Ravi Ranjan, a student of DAV School.

The student, whose school bus was stuck in the snarl for half-an-hour today, added: “By the time we reach home, we are almost starved and our throats parched.”

Kendriya Vidyalaya student Anu said the condition of traffic in the city was terrible.

Adults, too, coul not help but agree with the children.

“The situation is nighmarish. There is no parking space in front of banks in Gandhi Chowk-Gyan Babu Chowk area. It remains chock-a-block between 10am and 5pm,” said LND College Hindi department teacher Ramashray Choudhary.

His colleague in the economics department, Bhuwaneshwar Singh, said: “The situation is pathetic in the afternoon, when traffic snarls choke the thoroughfares.”

Dr Swarna Roy, a gynaecologist, said: “The bank management is responsible for arranging parking space for employees and customers but they hardly do that.”

Pravan Priyadarshan, an advocate, told The Telegraph: “If banks do not arrange for parking space for their employees and customers, they should not allow vehicles to be parked on the thoroughfares either.”

The management of none of the banks were, however, willing to accept the blame.

“What can we do if people park their cars in front of the bank. It is the responsibility of the nagar parishad and the traffic department to prevent unauthorised parking and traffic snarls,” said the manager of a bank on the condition of anonymity.

Sources said there are at least 12 traffic posts in town but none of them are manned throughout the day. Insufficient deployment of traffic constables also leads to snarls and confusion.

Prakash Asthana, the chairman of Motihari Nagar Parishad, told The Telegraph: “This is a very important issue. I have raised the issue of frequent traffic jams a number of times during the monthly board meetings. But it has yielded no result.”