Karimnagar: Poor traffic management adds to public misery

Karimnagar: Karimnagar city is advancing in development but the traffic management has become a big problem. Vehicle parking has become chaotic everywhere on the roads.

On the other hand, the occupation of carts and shops is causing the road to shrink. The lack of parking spaces in the city stands as a pretext for the lack of coordination by the authorities. The Karimnagar Traffic Police station has 85 personnel from Inspector of Police to Home Guard working in two shifts from 8 am to 2 pm and from 2 pm to 8 pm. There are 15 traffic points in the city.

10 people are using cameras to capture images of traffic violators who fail to wear a helmet, those passing on wrong routes, line crossing and triple riding. Others sit on the side of the road and take photos while on duty. As per the instruction of the authorities each police officer on duty regularly captures 100 images to impose penalties through e-challan. Criticisms have been leveled that the traffic police are not paying attention to solving the parking problem and focus on completing the target in the name of fines. Even if there is no parking space for commercial buildings in the city, shops are being set up. But municipal officials do not care about the issue any single day and the police do not look at those shops.

There is no parking space in the vegetable market, tower circle and Prakasam Ganj areas which are the commercial and business hubs. It is a well-known fact that except in the New Annapurna Complex alone, the owners do not provide parking facilities.

Both the police and municipal officials do not take any action on buildings that use cellar parking. At least notices are not issued. This situation is more prevalent in the main junctions across the city. The issuance of municipal licenses to shops that do not have a parking space is a testament to the negligence of the authorities. Parking problem is plaguing everyone in the city. People are suffering due to lack of coordination between the municipal and the police departments.