Despite huge investment in road infrastructure, Gurugram still faces traffic bottlenecks

Gurugram: In the last two year the Haryana government has built 12 underpasses and eight flyovers in Gurugram. There is more in store city's first elevated flyover being built at Sohna road.

Despite the huge investment Gurugram is still not being able to get rid of them with the traffic jams. The main reason cited for it is the massive number of private vehicles that are hitting Gurugram roads daily.

In just six months there have been 9,68,329 vehicles that have been registered in Gurugram in which over 4.5 lakh are only cars.

Despite such a large number of vehicles in addition to over four lakh vehicles daily coming from Delhi, the city has not created any parking spots and illegal parking continues to be a major problem.

Motorists tend to avoid even the 44 parking lots authorised by the Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP), formerly Haryana urban development authority, as the minimum parking fee is Rs 50, which goes up to Rs 100 per hour after the first three hours. Thanks to this supply gap and steep parking fee, unauthorised parking spaces have flourished at more than 150 locations in the city, police said, adding that with no tariff structure in place, owners of these unauthorised parking lots charge motorists anywhere between Rs 10 and Rs 250 for parking.

According to Gurugram police, incorrect parking is a major issue which fuels traffic congestion at major locations, such as MG Road, Golf Course Road and Cyber City.

"Our aim is to decongest roads and that is the reason we are extensively issuing fines to people who park vehicles on the roadside, covering a major part of the road," said a senior police official.

In 2018, after Haryana's biggest multilevel parking lot was opened in the heart of Gurugram in Sector 29, the facility lies nearly empty. It was built at a cost of Rs 150 crore.

Despite parking rates being about half of what is charged at the adjoining HUDA City Centre metro station, the multi-storey parking lot, which can hold 900-odd cars and about 200 two-wheelers, has an average occupancy of just 10-15 vehicles a day.

There are plans to open various multi parking slots in Gurugram yet the inability of the public agencies to zero in on locations have not resulted in the fructification of the

idea.