HYDERABAD: Nandi Nagar, Venkateshwara colony on Road number 14 Banjara Hills is always logjammed with traffic at any given point of the day or night restricting movement of the 2,000 odd residents of the colony. Residents blame the traffic congestions on street vendors, roadside car parking along their two-lane road.
“There is traffic on this road all the time, sometimes the road will be blocked for even an hour. I was late for an exam by over half an hour last year because we couldn’t drive out of here, “ said Naresh Rathod a 12 standard student. He points at the roadblock caused by two cars facing eachother and says, “This is a two-lane road but people park vehicles on either side and go shopping leaving no space for other vehicles.”
Residents say the traffic congestions started aggravating six years ago when their quiet street became home for street vendors. With increased commercial activity more shops opened up in the suburb.
“The street vendors are vote banks, we know nobody will touch them,” said Ram Chand, a taxi driver from the locality, “But something needs to be done about the cars being parked here for hours,” he added. Ram, drives for a taxi aggregator and often has had to cancel trips as he is unable to take his car out of the street.
The cars Chand is referring to are mostly visitors to the Prajapitha Brahma Kumaris Center for meditation. With no dedicated parking facility the visitors end up parking on either side of the road. “Traffic police don’t visit this side so there is no fear of challans, people can park for how many ever hours they want,” added Chand. But then why do road number 14 witness so many vehicles taking the route in a day? “People take this road as a shortcut to Masab Tank and to beat the traffic at Nagarjuna circle. But these roads are not meant for such heavy flow of traffic,” said Shankar, a resident of the colony who works with the GHMC as a bill collector.
Those being held responsible all have onething to say in common, “where else do we go?”.
Venkateshwara colony Corporator, Kavita Reddy had this to say, “The street vendors voted for me, how can I kick them out now? It’s not possible to expand the road width in Nandi Nagar and I have raised numerous complaints with the traffic police to depute someone full time to manage the traffic at that point.”