Vehicles parked near Power House gate on Jugsalai-Station Road, L-Town gate on Sakchi-Bistupur Road and Auction Yard gate near Sakchi-Burmamines-Station Road on Tuesday. (Bhola Prasad)

Steel behemoth Tata Steel has received a rap on its knuckles from city police for ignoring road safety norms, a rare instance in its century-plus history.

Deputy superintendent of police (traffic) East Singhbhum R.M. Sinha has written a letter to the steel major’s chief of security Gopal Choudhary on Monday, drawing his attention to traffic snarls caused due to vehicular parking near three of the plant gates.

The letter also asked Choudhary to arrange alternative parking sites inside the premises of plant.

The three gates on the traffic-snarl radar are Jugsalai Power House Gate (Jugsalai-Station Road), Burmamines Auction Yard gate (Station-Burmamines-Sakchi Road) and Sakchi L-Town gate (opening to Sakchi-Bistupur Main Road).

All the three gates open to busy roads witnessing heavy traffic throughout the day.

Tata employees have parking facilities inside plant. But most contractual workers and visitors park their vehicles outside the gates.

According to insiders, Sinha wrote the letter after city SP Karthik S. directed traffic police top brass to draw up immediate measures to curb traffic mishaps.

According to police records, till April this year, as many as 130 accidents took place in the city, leaving 51 dead and 128 injured.

In 2012, 424 accidents caused 189 deaths and left 334 people injured.

Speaking to The Telegraph, traffic DSP Sinha said that they hoped the steel major would take up the matter seriously and remove traffic bottlenecks caused due to “wrong parking sites”.

“City police had carried out a survey to identify potential mishap zones. It was found that vehicular parking at these three sites caused congestion on the roads they open to. Riders, in a hurry after duty hours, also run the risk of colliding with vehicles on the road,” said Sinha.

Tata Steel spokesperson Prabhat Sharma confirmed receiving the letter. “We will actively chalk out steps with city police,” he said.

As many as 300 to 500 vehicles are parked outside Jugsalai Power House gate each day during duty hours, squeezing Station Road that witnesses movement of nearly 1.5 lakh vehicles every day.

An equal number of vehicles are parked outside Sakchi L Town gate which opens onto the arterial link between Sakchi and Bistupur. It is precariously close to ADLS Sunshine School. The road sees a load of two lakh vehicles daily.

The Burmamines Auction Yard gate has 200-300 vehicles parked during duty hours. More than a lakh vehicles pass through the road every day.