Traffic congestion on Mastan Road in Cuttack. Pictures by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, Nov. 4: Thirty-two-year-old Abhishek Das, who uses Mastan Road to reach his office at Mangalabag daily, finds it hard to negotiate the heavy rush on the city’s major roads. For Das, a resident of Buxi Bazar, the rush is also burning a hole in his pockets as his fuel bills have almost doubled in the last couple of months.

“Though the distance from my home to office is only about 3.5 kilometres, it often takes me about half-an-hour to cover the entire stretch. Mastan Road, one of the busiest roads of the city, always has heavy traffic,” he said.

Hundreds of other commuters are also having a harrowing time just like Das while dealing with traffic on Mastan Road.

The road acts as a link between many vital destinations of the city, including Buxi Bazar, Manisahu Chhak, Cantonment, Matamath, Ring Road, Mangalabag, College Square, Ranihat and the railway station.

Besides, a lot of shops dealing with spare parts of vehicles and other commercial markets are also located here. However, many vehicles remain parked on either side of the road as there are no identified parking lots here.

“Though traffic congestion on this road is a very perennial problem, the authorities have not taken any steps to streamline vehicular movement here,” said Ashok Prusty, 45, another commuter.

However, Prusty also believes a lot of problems would have been solved had the drivers been more responsible in parking their vehicles on this road in a disciplined manner. At many places, encroachment and rampant parking on either side have reduced the passage of the road to half its width. Traffic officials also admitted to the problems of encroachment and illegal parking.

“Encroachers are frequently evicted and vehicles are fined for illegal parking. Still, things return to the same in no time,” said an official.

There are some proposals to streamline traffic flow on Mastan Road, including construction of a road divider up to Manisahu Chhak. “We will discuss these proposals at the next meeting of the city’s traffic management committee,” said an official.