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| File picture of police conducting security check before Republic Day in Guwahati |
The Republic Day celebrations in Assam this year undoubtedly signal peace in the state.
Irrespective of the claims by security forces of recovering explosives and the so-called encounters with militants in different parts of the state and the panic created by the men in khaki, it was a peaceful run-up to January 26.
However, for the residents of Guwahati, the woes are hardly over.
The city is choked with traffic and the administration is compounding the problem every day by reducing parking space. At a time when traffic is on the rise, the administration is busy making parking lots out of bounds by fencing off the spaces underneath the flyovers and in busy areas like Fancy Bazar.
The administration should either create new parking spaces by building multi-storey parking lots or make necessary security arrangements and open up parking spaces under the flyovers, which reduces the traffic congestion manifold in places like B. Borooah Road and Ganeshguri, among others.
Anamika Baruah,
Silpukhuri
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| Space crunch |
The state government’s failure to develop off-street parking spaces is primarily responsible for the growing traffic chaos on the city roads. Despite making tall promises of constructing parking plazas, the government is yet to take any visible step in this direction.
Blaming the people for haphazard parking when there are no facilities to do otherwise is of no use.
For years, citizens have been promised these facilities but these have never materialised. Moreover, the roadside parking lots along the main roads are not professionally managed and cannot be a substitute for off-street parking.
I simply fail to understand why the government is taking so long to implement the parking projects. We can only hope that government agencies like the Guwahati development department (GDD) and the Guwahati Metropolitan Development Agency (GMDA) will wake up to the problems of traffic mismanagement and start implementing the long-promised parking lot project.
Ashish S. Lal,
Guwahati
