Lack of parking space leads to traffic jam in Zirakpur

Rajiv Bhatia

Zirakpur, January 24
Chaos prevailed at Zirakpur following a major traffic jam that was witnessed due to ongoing shopping festival at the Paras Down Town Square here on Sunday. The traffic came to a standstill at most of the intersections, causing harassment to daily commuters. Traffic cops had a tough time in managing the traffic at many places.

The commuters alleged that since there was no proper parking at Paras Down Town Square, they were facing parking problem and were forced to park their vehicles outside the mall.

A survey of the area revealed that the commuters faced inconvenience as they were parking their vehicles in no -parking zone. The traffic police failed to challan the vehicles as they were helping the commuters to park their vehicles outside the mall.

The shopping festival at Big Bazaar is on. It leads to heavy rush at the mall. Visitors from Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali throng the mall, which leads to problem of parking.

Sanjay Chawla, a resident of Panchkula, said hundreds of vehicles were stranded for more than half-an -hour on the Zirakpur-Kalka highway as they were struck in a jam, which was caused due to the shopping festival.

Jagtar Singh, a resident of Patiala, said it’s not the first time that he had faced the parking problem but the mall authorities had failed to provide proper parking on every festival or big shopping festival.

He stated that the authority concerned should think about proper parking before opening a mall.

Traffic in charge Manjeet Singh stated that the traffic cops were performing their duties to clear the traffic jam due to a heavy rush of vehicles at the mall. “We will strictly ask the mall authorities to arrange proper parking before starting any shopping festival”, he added.