Small parking space, hawkers congest railway station road

Travelling on the road connecting the Gurgaon railway station to Rajiv Chowk, which is around 5kms away, is a nightmare for commuters.

Rows o f h awke r s, a u t o rickshaws and no proper space also create more traffic jams.

With a number of long distance as well as local trains halting at the railway station, the footfall has increased multi- fold in the past few years. Though, the railway authority has started renovating the railway station’s infrastructure, commuters are still stuck outside the station in j ams for long durations.

“I have to leave half-an-hour earlier so as to avoid traffic jams. It is almost impossible to park my car anywhere near the station. Whatever space is available is already full, so the only option is to park it on the road which further adds to the traffic.” said Priyanshi Singh, t r ave l l i n g from Gurgaon to Uttarakhand.

Under the new infrastructural plan, authorities will renovate the area outside the station but there is no clarity on more parking spaces as yet.

“We h ave t a l ke d t o t h e Northern railways to demoli s h t h e r a i lw ay q u a r t e r s right behind the station and construct a parking area. This will help in reducing the traffic because of cars parked on the road,” said an official at the Gurgaon railway station.

“Another issue is that even though there is a pre- paid booth for autos, people hop on to the shared autos which are highly unsafe and illegal to operate in this area,” the official added.

“We have also talked to the traffic police authorities to regulate the traffic and remove hawkers occupying space near and around the station,” he added.

Police officials swung into action after receiving a call about a bomb planted in Sahara Mall on MG Road on Friday afternoon but it proved to be a hoax.

The PCR received an anonymous call at around 3.30 pm on Friday. Within 20-25 minutes, police squads reached the spot and evacuated the entire mall and launched a massive search operation with the help of a bomb squad but found nothing.

An entire team of police force with two fire brigades, bomb squad, ambulances and police officials, majorly from DLF, were present during inspection.

“The police control room received an anonymous call at around 3.30 in the afternoon, after which an entire police force was sent to the spot. We found nothing after fully inspecting the mall and it is now open to the public. The police force was also able to evacuate the mall within 20 - 25 minutes. We will thoroughly inspect the matter and find out where the call came from,” said Deepak Saharan, deputy commissioner of police (East), Gurgaon.

The shopkeepers were first told a fire in the mall but later got to know about the hoax bomb call.

“After I saw police cars and ambulances rushing to the mall, I got to know that the police are checking the premises for a bomb. The police was very quick in taking the required action,” said JK Gupta, head of Sahara Mall.