Decongesting Shillong roads: Govt officials should avoid personal cars to office, says CM

CM Sangma said that efforts have been expedited to make operational a parking lot in the Wards Lake area by December or by February 2024.

Shillong is one of the most sought after, favourite tourist destinations for many, but traffic congestion in the city has turned it into a nightmare. Narrow streets with vehicles parked haphazardly has further escalated the woes for locals as well as tourists.

The Conrad Sangma government has taken strong exception to this and is working on a number of short term and long term plans to decongest the traffic in the city.

Among the many steps that the Conrad government is looking at to ease the traffic congestion on the streets of capital city Shillong, includes discouraging Government employees from using personal cars while coming to office and opt either for car pool or get official buses to pick them up.

“We are also ensuring that like for schools what we have done is that we have started to discourage people from going for personal vehicles, we are encouraging use of buses at different levels. We would like to do that for even government officials also. That is also another step that we plan to do.”

According to CM Sangma the shifting of the Administrative Complex from Shillong would also go a long way in resolving the issue.

He said, “There are multiple levels of work going on, the biggest which we are working on is that we are going to be shifting the entire administration of the state outside the main part of Shillong, so we are expecting to shift to the New Shillong area for the Secretariat. We have already started the ground work for it. The work, we expect that we will be able to start this financial year itself.”

Sharing details about this CM Sangma said that efforts have been expedited to make operational a parking lot in the Wards Lake area by next month or by February 2024. Two other parking lots would also be constructed within the town and Secretariat areas.

The Chief Minister said, “The procedure for large number of parking lots has already started. You will most probably very soon, by Christmas or by January, February, will see that Ward’s Lake area will have a new parking lot.

So just behind the wall that is there and on the side of the Tara Ghar, if you see that work is going on, it is the parking lot that is coming up there. So we will not have vehicles parked on the roads, but parked inside, street vendors who are there will be inside. We need to give space to everybody. Similarly, for example with the town and the secretariat area already 2 locations have been identified where we are going to come up with parking lots, multiple level car parking lots. So all those vehicles or most of them at least will not be on the streets anymore.”

“At the same time we are also expecting and working on creating parking and waiting space for the taxis and buses. So whether it is Khyndailad or Mothphran you will see that taxis wait for 1 hour, 45 minutes, half an hour, till they don’t have enough passengers, they don’t leave. Buses are also the same. Therefore, simply pushing them out may not be a long term solution. Hence, we need to create an alternative space for them. We are working on that,” Conrad Sangma said.

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