Days after the Karnataka High Court set a new timeframe to auction or demolish the abandoned vehicles, the footpaths and roadsides in Bangalore are still full of such vehicles.
Be extra careful while driving on Pipeline Road during the night as you might not see the vehicles coming from the other side. This is because the road, including the turns, is covered by parked vehicles of all sizes.
Rajath, a biker who travels to Mahalakshmi Layout every day through the Pipeline Road said that it is very dangerous to travel on this road at night because the road is full of parked vehicles. “People park their cars on the main road and there are even buses parked at night. It becomes very difficult to see the road ahead on turning points or while overtaking, as the road is narrower,” he said.
According to the new interim order by the Karnataka High Court, any vehicle left on footpaths or roads for more than 15 days will be considered abandoned and the owners of these vehicles will be fined, recent news reports note.
This order came after Bruhat Bengaluru MahanagaraPalike (BBMP) and the Traffic Police jointly submitted an affidavit to the court with the idea of clearing the roads and footpaths of these abandoned vehicles. The affidavit was to request a reduction in the time frame for the disposal of these vehicles. The current time frame is six months.
According to news reports, a similar initiative to clear abandoned vehicles from the city was taken by these authorities in 2022 but it did not show any results.
According to the Traffic Management Centre, there are around 2,000 abandoned vehicles parked on footpaths and roadsides across the city.
Arifulla, an auto driver said that it is very irritating that people leave their vehicles on the roads and others have to suffer because of that as it acts as an extra hurdle in the already congested city.
Suresh L., the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of BBMP said that the recent project to clear the vehicles from the footpath is in a processing stage. “No plan of action has been implemented yet,” he said.
Balaji, an official from the Traffic Engineering Cell of BBMP said that it’s the responsibility of the Traffic Police and executive engineers of the wards concerned to remove these vehicles and park them in the designated land. The place for keeping these vehicles is yet to be decided formally.
Around 11 electric vehicles are parked on the footpath opposite Lakeview Milk Bar in Indiranagar.
Keerthi, a student of St. Joseph’s College of Commerce, said that vehicles parked on the footpaths obstruct the pedestrian movement. She said, “These vehicles are covered with heaps of dust and it destroys the aesthetics of the city.”
Sreedhar B.S., Executive Engineer of BBMP in CV Raman Nagar said, “We, on the ward level, only remove illegal encroachments and debris from the footpath, we have nothing to do with the abandoned vehicles parked on footpaths.”
Anil Kumar, Inspector at Traffic Management Centre said that there are 50 traffic police stations in the city, all of them identify abandoned vehicles in their wards and report it to their respective station. Information about the owners of these vehicles is identified with the help of the Regional Transport Office (RTO) department. Once the owner is identified, he is asked to take his vehicle if it is not more than 15 years old. If the condition of the vehicle is bad, it goes to the scrap yard.
He added that in certain cases the owner is not identified then the jurisdictional court is told about the same and the court sets a selling price for it. Such vehicles are put on the Metal Scrap Trade Corporation (MSTC), which is a government-based e-auction website. Interested parties can buy the vehicle from the site.
According to the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) of BBMP, if the name and address of the registered owner of the vehicle is not traced then a public notice will be issued, stating that the abandoned vehicle would be confiscated and would be a subject matter of scrapping, in the event of not appearing for paying penalty and not taking steps for the disposal of the vehicle.
Kumar said that there are vehicles that don’t have number plates, in such cases the chassis number of the vehicle is used to find who the owner of the vehicle is and if the vehicle was stolen. The entire process takes around six months and can’t be done on short notice, he added.
Parking of vehicles on footpaths and roadside violates regulation 15 of Road Regulations, 1989. According to this regulation, every driver of a motor vehicle should park the vehicle in such a way that it doesn’t cause danger, obstruction or inconvenience to other road users.
Vikram Bhat, an urban planner, said that abandoned vehicles parked on footpaths and streets make the commuting space narrower. He added that it leads to traffic congestion during peak hours. He suggested that the authorities impose heavy fines on the owners of these vehicles.
He said, “As the income of the families is increasing, they are buying more vehicles, particularly cars. There is no sufficient space to park so many vehicles at home so they park their cars on the roads.” Education drives should be conducted to ensure that people are aware of the anti-social elements that come along with this problem as illegal activities go unnoticed behind an old parked car, he added.
