VIJAYAWADA: Lack of sufficient parking facility at the Kanaka Durga temple, the second biggest temple in the State, often causes traffic jams, especially on weekends and during festivals, near Indrakeeladri as many choose to park their four-wheelers and two-wheelers by the roadside.
The temple has two parking spots — one atop the hill and another at Arjuna Street — which can hold not more than 500 vehicles at a time. One can often see vehicles being parked on the canal road and the national highway during the peak hours.
“Lack of enough parking space is creating problems for traffic management in the area with most of the vehicles getting parked on the canal road and other internal roads in the One-town locality, where business activities are high. Traffic snarls during peak hours of the day have become a common sight. Temple authorities need to focus on creating more parking spaces,” said a senior traffic cop on the condition of anonymity.
The official stated that the problem needs to be addressed immediately as the temple has been seeing an average influx of 30,000 devotees daily for the past one week. “In summers, it is common that temple records a footfall of 30,000 on any given day. This is the time where the problem arises in terms of vehicle parking as more than 70 percent of the devotees are arriving in cars, jeeps and minivans,” he added.
Temple executive officer D Bramarambha told TNIE that efforts are underway to convert the open spaces near the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) office and the TTD land in Kummaripalem into parking spaces. She said proposals for the same have been sent to both VMC commissioner and TTD chairman. “The proposed spaces can accommodate around 500 vehicles. A temporary shed will also be built for devotees,” the EO added.
She added two floors in the under-construction building near Mallikarjuna Mahamandapam will also be utilised for parking.