If there is any major problem facing the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir state in a gigantic way, it is the traffic mess coupled with the most difficult aspect of parking of vehicles. Now, a few paid parking slots in the city are packed to capacity with no respite or room for accommodating more even when vehicles leaving such slots are outnumbered by the freshly arrived ones, roads and adjoining lanes are, as a result, used for parking purposes making such places otherwise for the use of pedestrians, brimmed to capacity on both the sides. Overnight parking on roads and lanes which are already narrow make things more difficult.
The Centrally sponsored scheme of Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT ) was considered as the opportune scheme to address to some extent, the problem of parking and since the availability of very limited area of land in the city for the purpose led to the scheme of having a multi-level parking complexes . Both the chosen spots, the Panchtarthi and Peer Kho have proved to be a damp squib right from choosing these places haphazardly to the non-seriousness exhibited as to the feasibility aspect down to addressing tendering and allied issues. The main ingredient of the scheme under Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs is to build amenities in cities ushering for a better and quality oriented life for all, as of now, has seemingly been defeated in the first ever endeavour made by the State Government.
The result of the blend of non professional approach coupled with the propensity to not taking prompt and cogent decisions fearing for the risk factor involved and red tape, has wasted two precious years during which the problem of parking has become more complicated and the emerged scenario perhaps being no one’s problem. Seeing the political angle to the whole issue, we are afraid, is reduced to nothing less than theatrics as who – when at the earliest- and with how much fanfare was going to do the laying of foundation stone ritual only to generate that photo ops and publicity air around never to look back whether any construction or starting of the project really commenced after that political melodrama or the histrionics of the sorts. That is why people hardly take foundation stone ceremonies by most of the politicians as serious because of their general fate as experienced in respect of conceiving the idea of erecting of two multi-level parking complexes at Panjtirthi and PeerKho in Jammu city.
What has been the role of the Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) and other agencies in the subject matter so far as feasibility issues are concerned? Why was the basic feasibility aspect of the soil not gone deep into technically before finally floating the tenders especially for Panjtirthi project and why the whole process was accorded a mundanely treatment ? There is, besides the motive of profit, an element of establishing a record of safety , security and work of quality by most of the reputed firms and agencies undertaking such works and once the word spreads about what weakness was found in the soil while testing its holding the requisite brunt of the peculiar type of construction that would serve the purpose of withstanding the load , pulls and pressures of incoming , outgoing and stationary vehicles etc, the matters become only complicated. Others in the same line, as a natural corollary, are reluctant to take up the job. That perhaps speaks for the disinterested approach shown by the prospective firms and contractors in respect of the tenders floated for the Peer Kho project.
Why has the Government with all its vast resources not started the work to treat the soil to render it fit for the said purpose and if due to technical and financial reasons, the same was thought to be unaffordable and unworkable , why alternate sites have so far not been identified, which only indicates the level of seriousness displayed in the matter. Since the issue of Parking and decongesting of Jammu city is turning into unmanageable proportions by applying worn out patch work and ad-hoc measures, let there be a serious thinking on the subject by the Government for action on the ground which we earnestly long for and which we shall be monitoring regularly.
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