No cars in CP inner circle after Games

Here's some good news for people who don't mind a stroll round the Connaught Place inner circle. The New Delhi Municipal Council plans to restrict vehicles from entering the circle, one of Delhi's oldest and most popular hangouts, after the Commonwealth Games in October. Neelam Pandey reports.

Here's some good news for people who don't mind a stroll round the Connaught Place (CP) inner circle.

HT Image

The New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) plans to restrict vehicles from entering the circle, one of Delhi's oldest and most popular hangouts, after the Commonwealth Games in October.

The ongoing construction on the subways will be over by the time the plan takes off, the civic body claims. NDMC has already begun placing green strips of grass on those stretches that are being currently used as driveways.

The civic body is working on the concept of "park and ride" under which people coming to the commercial business district will be able to park their vehicles in the multi-level parking lots at Baba Kharak Singh, Shivaji stadium and the existing Palika parking.

To help movement of people, the civic agency will run 50-odd battery-operated buses to and from the parking lots. Currently Inner Circle can accommodate 1,500 vehicles at a given point of time.

But traders are unhappy.

"As per the Master Plan of Delhi 2021 CP, with an area of 3-lakh square meters, needs parking space for at least 9,000 vehicles. The civic agency has been reducing parking space in CP in the name of beautification. This concept can't work," said Atul Bhargava, president of New Delhi Traders' Association.

An NDMC official, on the condition of anonymity, said there would be no parking problems after the new multi-level parking lots are built.