Madurai: In Madurai city, because cinema theaters, commercial complexes, and hotels do not have adequate parking facilities, cars are being left parked openly on the roads for several hours, causing traffic congestion and creating law-and-order problems. Allegations have arisen that, due to political influence, the city police, highways department, local planning authority, municipal corporation, and district administration officials are turning a blind eye and letting it pass.
Madurai has many spiritual and public tourist attractions, including the world-famous Meenakshi Amman Temple, Alagar Kovil, Thirupparankundram Murugan Temple, Koodal Azhagar Perumal Temple, Vandiyur Mariamman Temple, Thirumalai Nayakkar Palace, and the Gandhi Museum.
In recent times, Madurai has become famous for its traditional and delicious food, and even people from outside the city now come here in the evenings and at night for food tours.
Those who come for food tourism go to their favorite hotels in the city area according to their financial means, eat there, and then head to the places they need to go. With the increase in the arrival of domestic and foreign tourists and devotees, shopping malls, hotels, small and large textile shops, and even cinema theaters are now being opened in the city to target them.
In the past, the municipal administration, on behalf of the town planning department, issued notices to commercial complexes and hotels without ‘parking’ facilities and took steps to make parking arrangements for them to park vehicles. After that, since this action was discontinued, the number of hotels, textile shops, and commercial complexes without ‘parking’ facilities opening again on state highways and municipal roads in the municipal area has increased.
As a result, at night, people arriving by cars and two-wheelers to cinema theaters, malls, commercial complexes, hotels, and textile shops are leaving their vehicles parked on the roads for several hours, as there is not enough ‘parking’ facility there.
In view of Ayudha Pooja, since last Saturday was part of a series of holiday days, a large number of local and out-of-town people came and went in cars in the city areas for spiritual tourism, food tourism, and entertainment tourism in the Madurai metropolitan area.
There was a huge crowd of people with their families at the cinema theaters as well. Due to the unusual crowd, people who came by cars and two-wheelers to cinema theaters, malls, textile shops with inadequate parking facilities, and hotels with no parking facilities at all, are parking on the roads and leaving. Hundreds of people who came last night to the hotels and cinema theaters on Gokhale Road, Natham Road, Thamaraithotti Bharathi Ula Veethi, and District Court Road boldly and openly parked their cars on these roads for several hours and left.
At that time, heavy rain in the city naturally caused traffic congestion on the roads, and vehicles struggled to get through the floodwater on the streets. With these cars parked for several kilometers along the roads, traffic was severely affected overall on Natham Road, Gokhale Road, and District Court Road, and some vehicles were involved in accidents here and there, leading to law and order issues as well. Normally, traffic police impose fines of thousands of rupees for parking two-wheelers on the roads and for those riding without helmets, but they did not take any action to remove the vehicles parked on the roads.
When asked about this, sources in the city police said, “A ‘No Parking’ fine of Rs. 500 has been imposed on all cars parked on the roads.” Public anger has grown over whether the city police’s duty and responsibility end with merely issuing fines.
Will the District Collector take action?- In areas under the municipal corporation, the local planning authority alone must inspect and grant permission for malls, cinema theatres, commercial complexes, hotels, and textile shops with a floor area of more than 5,380 square feet, to determine whether there is adequate parking facility.
However, the local planning authority, without conducting direct inspections, has been granting permission even to hotels and textile shops that have no parking facility, due to political influence. The Public Health Department, the Municipal Corporation’s Town Planning Department, the City Police Department, and the local planning authority can jointly issue notices to buildings without parking and take action.
However, since all company owners operate with some political backing, government departments do not show the same strictness toward large corporations as they do toward ordinary motorists and traders. The public expects that at the monthly law and order review meeting chaired by the District Collector, the Collector should raise the issue of the city’s parking problem and get the concerned department officials to take action,” people say.