shubha

HYDERABAD: The twin cities have overtaken other metros like Delhi and Mumbai in its vehicle-load. One hundred and twenty new cars and 480 other vehicles (two-wheelers and three-wheelers) hit the roads everyday.

This means an average of 600 new vehicles everyday, 18,000 every month and over two lakh a year are added to the city's vehicle population.

At present, the twin cities have 19.5 lakh vehicles of all categories. About 3.25 lakh of them are cars which imply higher pollution level, slower flow of traffic, more bumper-to-bumper vehicles and greater possibility of grid locking, that is cars getting 'locked'in such manner at intersections that none can get out of the formation.

The reasons for this mind-boggling spurt in the number of cars vary from rise in the income level of Hyderabadis to easy car finance.

Whatever be the reason, the traffic police are left helpless in the face of this ocean of cars. The city has not known public parking till recently. Now, parking on the streets has reached dangerous proportions with 30,000 car owners getting fined every month.

While this is yet another way of generating revenue, the traffic police are not impressed. They have with them 13 cranes for towing away cars parked illegally.

The department will soon add another eight cranes to tackle the rising number of cars and with them increased violations.

The problem is more grave on roads like Banjara Hills Road No. 1 and Raj Bhavan Road to name a few.

About ten years ago, it was the small and sturdy Maruti 800 that mostly rolled out on the city roads. Then Santros and Indicas took over. Now, Honda City and Skodas are ruling the roost.

These luxury and mid-segment cars need 20 sq m of parking space be it outside residential complexes or at shopping malls.

That much of space is too much to ask for in the city, complain traffic experts. The ratio between two-wheelers and four-wheelers has changed significantly over the last three years. It used to be 85:15 three years ago, at present it stands at 75:25, according to the traffic police.

The traffic police conducted a survey in Jubilee Hills some days ago covering 200 consecutive households in the area. The 200 households were found to have 780 cars which mean on an average every household has nearly four cars.

The survey also found that one and at the most two persons were using a single car. "Three factors are influencing the spurt in the numbers. It is affordability, safety and comfort but of course they bring along a whole lot of other problems," said additional commissioner of police (traffic) A K Khan.

IT companies in the city enlist the services of 5,000 cars as shuttles. "These 5,000 cars can be replaced with just 800 to 1,000 buses. So, we asked the APSRTC to explore the option of plying air-conditioned buses for IT companies," added A K Khan. Buses may occupy more space on the roads but at least the numbers would come down, reason traffic cops.

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