SAMBALPUR: ON the one hand, crores are being spent by the State Government on various welfare measures and on the other, lack of funds has forced the Sambalpur administration to make little headway in the proposed Comprehensive Transportation Plan (CTP) here. The plan would have helped improve the traffic scenario in the City, thus reducing frequent accidents.
After the idea was floated last year, the district administration had zeroed in on the Civil Engineering department of VSS University of Technology (VSSUT) at Burla to take up the job. The department was supposed to prepare the CTP to ease traffic congestion in the City. The district administration even issued a letter to the department regarding the work and terms of references.
The Civil Engineering department, with its expertise, had agreed to prepare the transportation plan with a consultation fee of `1.5 lakh, which the district administration was supposed to deposit with the department.
The department would have ascertained the nature of the problem and land that could be made available for designing the CTP. The department had even clarified that if the district administration is looking for long term plan, it will require extensive work, data and more time. They had specified that for long term plan, the department will have to collect data on existing traffic and future economic activities of the City before work on the long term plan could be initiated.
It was hoped that with the implementation of the plan, the traffic scenario would improve. But the situation now is such that people are hiring vehicles rather than driving their own. Moreover, there is no parking space and in many areas, shopkeepers do not allow anyone to park vehicles in front of their shops. With the district administration failing to deposit consultation fee, work on the much-hyped CTP seems to be abandoned as of now.
Sambalpur SP Akhilesvar Singh said the proposal had to be dropped for lack of funds. He said that although the Civil Engineering department of VSS UT had agreed to undertake the work, the plan has been suspended due to unavailability of fund.
With people parking their two-wheelers on the road with no designated parking zone, it is a nightmare for four-wheeler drivers to drive through the City.