LIT should take over Feroze Gandhi mkt parking: Association

Ludhiana: Irked over the negligence of the municipal corporation in maintaining the parking lots of markets, the

Feroze Gandhi market

association members have urged local bodies minister Brahm Mohindra to bring this market in the purview of Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT).

In a letter to the minister, the members claimed that the civic body had failed in resolving the issues in the market and now since January the market’s parking lots had been left in abandoned state as the contractor is not willing to take over these, which has led to utter chaos. However, they claimed that in an information obtained under the RTI, they had come to know that the rights of these parking lots are still lying with LIT and it was transferred to the civic body in 1985 for maintenance purpose.

The members claimed that MC was supposed to manage the parking lots and maintain the market but it had failed miserably to do justice, resulting in complete mismanagement and gross neglect of this market. They claimed that the parking contract money ranges between Rs 1.90 crore to almost Rs 38 lakh, depending how well the contractor could influence the officials concerned. The MC has been running the five parking lots for over a year and could not earn more than Rs 30 lakh. Such huge losses can only be investigated by the vigilance department.

They rued that business in the market was suffering due to chaos all around and there was no fire prevention system in the market. Even fire tenders and ambulance will not be able to enter the market in case of some emergency as the contractors are interested in profits only and not in the parking management. Even the main road from Pakhowal road to a hotel gets choked, resulting in traffic blockades.

The members further said, “Ludhiana Improvement Trust is located near the Feroze Gandhi market and the chaos in the parking lots and on the main road is evident to the entire staff of the trust. It is, therefore, requested that LIT should take back the market from MC and manage the parking with assistance of this association or Punjab Ex-Servicemen Corporation and provide relief to public at large and to this market.”

“If no action is taken in reasonable time, then this market association will be forced to approach the Punjab and Haryana high court for what they called as non-compliance of orders,” they added.

Meanwhile, the secretary of MC, Neeraj Jain, said, “We have already sent the file for taking a decision regarding the contractor who is not taking charge of parking lots in the market. As far as other things are concerned, already one way and towing zones had been implemented in the market and traffic police was informed as well.” He claimed that they had also installed fire lane boards in the market.