Parking, major problem for citizens in Curchorem town

CURCHOREM: The growing number of vehicles in and around Curchorem has made it difficult for the town to provide them parking space. The ‘illegal’ constructions coming up in the town is also cutting short the sparce space providing parking for the ever growing vehicles. This becomes a serious problem specially for those who visit the town for shopping and for other work.

At many places including those which are marked by the authorities for parking in the market area, the vehicles are seen parked in a haphazard manner which becomes difficult situations for the moving vehicles as well as for pedestrians.

According to Quepem Assistant Director of Transport office around 5385 vehicles were registered with them in the last 12 months of which 417 are registered in the last one month.

Curchorem Traffic Cell PI Krishna Sinari said that they fined 12,628 motorists for various offences and have collected fines amounting to Rs 1,491,450 for the period from April 1 to September 15 this year. Of these Rs. 43,200 were collected only for no-parking offences.

“It is an irritating experience. Finding proper parking space seems to be a perennial problem in the market area almost every day. It was really a challenging time during the recently held Ganesh Chaturthi festival as the people who came for shopping parked their two wheelers on the roads everywhere in haphazard manner due to lack of parking spaces,” said Manohar Naik, a former CCMC councillor.

Stating further he demanded to know how the authorities are passing/approving the plans and manage to give occupancy certificates to the buildings that have recently come up and some are still under construction without providing the required parking facilities. “During the tenure of former MLA of Curchorem constituency Domnick Fernandes, CCMC acquired a land near the public garden for parking purpose but later it was never developed and now it is seen that a new building of the municipality is under construction on it,” informed Naik and warned the authorities not to grant licences blindly ignoring the basic violations which are mandatory like providing parking/open spaces.

When asked if the Curchorem-Cacora Municipal Council (CCMC) has taken any decision to tackle the parking problem in the town, Chairperson Felix Fernandes replied: “After having 4 to 5 meetings in the presence of Curchorem MLA Nilesh Cabral, assistant director of transport, Curchorem Traffic PI, Curchorem PI, Mamlatdar and PWD (Roads) assistant engineer, parking plan has been prepared and is almost in the final stage. Most probably it will be implemented within a month.”

Briefing further he said that since most of the parking spaces particularly near the railway station and bus stop are being occupied almost for an entire day by the travellers going to work using the railways and buses. This is one of the major problems for those who are visiting the market for shopping and other purposes for a short time. “Therefore we decided to introduce pay parking in the market area which will be free for first two hours and will be charged for subsequent hours,” said Fernandes and added that separate zone for parking will be created near the GSUDA market for the benefit of travellers who use railways and buses. 

“The job of collecting parking fees will be outsourced.” informed Fernandes when asked who will be collecting the fees.

When brought to his notice that people are complaining that new buildings which are constructed in the market area do not have required/sufficient parking spaces including proper access road and still occupying them, Fernandes said that municipality issuing the occupancy certificates only if the structure/constructions are as per the approved plans and that too after obtaining a technical clearances/completion certificate from the Town and Country Planning Department (TCP). 

When contacted the Quepem Dy. Town Planner Manguirish Verenkar informed that they approve the buildings/constructions plans based on Goa Land Development and Building Construction Regulations 2010. “There is a chart where it is shown parking schedule: For every 50 square metres one parking space in commercial building and one parking for 75 square metres for residential building,” said Verenkar.

When asked who is supposed to monitor if the construction is built as per the approved plan or not, Verenkar replied: “We are not a monitoring department. This has to see by the licensing authority like the village panchayats or municipalities. There is a provision called post occupancy audit which the licensing authorities has to conduct to see whether any conversion/modification has been done later on,” said Verenkar and added that they give completion certificate only if the construction is as per approved plan.

It is learnt from reliable sources that many a time builders show the parking spaces on the construction plans and later once the plan is approved the parking spaces are converted for commercial purposes which the TCP and Licensing Authorities has to see.

“Rules and regulations should be amended with the help of town planners as in current rules and regulations there is every scope for interpretation which should be avoided and the rule should be more specific,” said a citizen on condition of anonymity.

When asked to react over the difficulties faced by the public to park their vehicles in the market and violations of building rules which ask for providing sufficient parking spaces and access road, local MLA and Power Minister Nilesh Cabral accepting there exists problems said that he will ask the concerned authorities to inspect the buildings and if any violations are detected then necessary action as per law will be taken.

“While designing the municipality building which is under construction near the public garden and another one near the railway station which will be constructed after demolishing the old building, I told them to take stringent measures for providing parking under the basement of both the buildings,” said Cabral and urged others to follow it.

Now the citizens have to wait and watch whether the plan which the CCMC assured to implement is a short term or long term measure and if that will solve the problem and also if the authorities will take any action against the violators of building norms after inspecting them.