Soon, parking space for 5,000 cars in old Delhi

The North Delhi Municipal Corporation has decided to decongest old Delhi markets such as Sadar Bazar, Church Mission Road, Naya Bazar and Chandni Chowk by creating additional parking space for around 5,000 cars.

Civic body officials said the additional space would be created though stack parking, multilevel car parks and enhancing the capacity of on-street parking lots.

Wholesale markets catering to businesses such as clothing, utensils, dry fruits and chemicals are spread across old Delhi. Thousands of cars are parked on the roadside due to lack of parking space, causing congestion.

Last week, north corporation standing committee chairperson Veena Virmani and civic body officials had visited a number of places in old Delhi to assess the problem of road congestion and explore the feasibility of creating additional parking spaces.

Virmani said congestion on old Delhi roads had been a perennial problem because of haphazard parking on roads.

“We have come up with a number of projects to address the parking problem. We will construct stack parkings at Yamuna Bazar and at Church Mission Road. A multilevel parking at Gandhi Maidan is being built with a capacity to accommodate 2,400 cars,” she said.

Virmani said these parkings would be handed over to the market associations — on the lines of Lajpat Nagar and Karol Bagh — at reasonable rates so that they can operate and maintain them.

The civic officials said additional space would be created at Church Mission Road by constructing ramps to increase parking space for two wheelers from 500 to 1,000. Space for additional 100 cars could also be arranged.

A senior civic body official said work on the Gandhi Maidan parking has begun and would be completed in 2020. Other plans to create more parking spaces and increase the capacity of the existing ones would be implemented in two to three months, he said.

“We will demolish the old abandoned building of Novelty Cinema in Naya Bazar and develop a parking there for at least 60 cars. Work has been awarded for the Qutub Road (Sadar Bazar) parking, with space for 160 cars. A new surface parking of 50 cars will be developed at Pili Kothi,” he said.

Devraj Baweja, general secretary of Confederation of Sadar Bazar Traders Association, said the parking plan would help the old city as a whole but Sadar Bazar would not benefit much.

“Parking is a major issue in Sadar Bazar. The plan is good but we need more space. Space for 160 vehicles is not enough when more than 1,000 cars are parked every day on the road,” Baweja said.

Sushil Goel from the Khari Baoli chemical merchant association said, “Additional parking spaces are very much required but it should not be merely a verbal announcement.”