Esplanade entry, exit create traffic mess

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Bhubaneswar: The exit drive away of vehicles from the newly-opened Esplanade One Mall at Rasulgarh in the city is creating chaos during normal and peak times and hampering the business of more than 50 industrial bodies which are operating from the Rasulgarh Industrial Estate.
The entry of Industrial Estate-bound vehicles from the Rasulgarh main road is marred by congestions on the crossing near the mall, leading to prolonged delays of the vehicles, both incoming and outgoing, besides sometimes creating a gridlock during the peak hours. Common road users are also not spared. They are left with no option but to bear the temporary jams.
Industrial bodies have approached the local administration, registering their complaints with them. The District Small Scale Industries Association of undivided Puri district has already staged protests in this regard. A minor scuffle between them and the mall management was reported sometime back. Business houses in the industrial area are not happy with the spurt in congestion resulting from several entry and exit points on different sides of the mall.
The association believes that the guards of the mall are obstructing the movement of the business vehicles and affecting their operations. The association has now written to the BMC in this regard, but it has gone in vain. Untrained private guards who are often seen managing the crowd at the crossings are often seen flashing sticks to allow entry or exit to the vehicles on the Rasulgarh road. Some of the guards said they have been asked by the mall management to manage the crowd.
With the atmosphere hotting up, the traffic police department has planned to resolve the issue by taking on board all the stakeholders.
“We have convened a meeting Tuesday between the industrial bodies and the mall management to sort out the issue. We want both of them to engage a structural engineer and sit together and decide how to solve the issue amicably. Other stakeholders relating to the project like IDCO, BMC and BDA are also likely to take part in the meeting,” Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Anup Kumar Kanungo told Orissa POST.
When asked if the Commissionerate Police has issued a notice to the mall over parking and congestion issues, the ACP denied any such notice. He said, “We visited the area to inspect the issue. We have suggested them to open two lanes into the mall on the main road so that around 30 cars who want to go inside are lined up inside and they do not congest the main road. We want to decongest the industrial area by streamlining the vehicles entering/exiting the mall.”
The local authorities are planning to take the mall management into confidence to construct another incoming lane towards the mall from the Bomikhal bridge side to ease the traffic and to ensure all exits and entrances open to the main road only.
Local authorities believe during Sundays, around 50,000 visitors throng the mall while the mall parking capacity stands at 3,000 as per the claims of the mall authorities. The issue is likely to get complex once the Bomikhal bridge starts operations and when the cars start landing onto the front side of the mall. Ancillary shops like tea shops, gol gappa stalls and others are also likely to come up in the area in the coming days to make the traffic issues much more worse.