Pics: Umesh Marpalli
Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi (HB)

Udupi, Oct 7: Vehicle parking is one of the biggest problems in Udupi. People are often stuck due to traffic on service bus stand and city bus stand. Often tourists on two-wheelers and four- wheelers are seen searching for proper park place for their vehicles.

There are a few chalked out places for parking vehicles but it is not enough considering the increasing number of vehicles.

People complained about the lack of parking space to SP Dr Sanjeev Patil during the phone-in programme with him on Saturday October 7. Acting swiftly to the public grievance, SP Patil personally visited and examined the parking system in the city.

He identified the main parking places along with additional SP and the traffic police. He then met with locals to assess the ground reality. There is a parking space at Sri Krishna Math, Car Street but tourists fail to notice this.

During special festive seasons, special arrangements are made to park vehicles around the city. But on usual days, pedestrians have to find their own way to move around in the congested traffic. The matter becomes worse when people violate rules and park their vehicles on footpaths.

For parking space, places like Board High School, near service bus stand and Jatka bus stand have been identified. People are fed up with traffic woes due to narrow roads.

Some of the building owners are also directly responsible for this problem. They have not made proper basement for parking space. Instead of parking space, they run commercial shops in the basement, thus violating all norms. In such cases, it is the responsibility of City Municipality Council (CMC) to verify while issuing NOC to such buildings.

"District superintendent of police DR Sanjeev Patil has identified a place at K M Marg to park vehicles. He has also discussed about traffic sign boards with bureaucrats and instructed them to address the problem immediately," said by DySP Kumaraswamy to daijiworld.

Locals opine that the parking system of the city needs to improve and with that half of the traffic problem will be solved.