With no parking lots, traffic crawls

Allahabad: Marriage halls have been mushrooming across the city but most of them don't have proper parking facilities. As a result, there are traffic jams whenever a marriage celebration takes place. And commuters have trouble negotiating their way around these halls.

Currently, marriage season is on and most of the marriage halls have been booked. There are about 450 marriage halls in different parts of the city, most of them concentrated in Kareli, Ghausnagar, Allahpur, Colonelganj, Alopi Bagh, Tagore Town and George Town.

Kareli is particularly famous for the maximum number of marriage halls so traffic jams are a regular feature for residents here. A visibly peeved Mehtab Alam said, "I live near one of the marriage halls. There are perpetual traffic jams during the marriage season and constant noise from parties. I have complained many a times but no action has been taken."

Another resident, Mukesh Shukla, said, "The problem can be checked if adequate space is provided in such marriage halls because then guests wouldn't park their vehicles on roadsides. It is due to the haphazard parking of numerous vehicles around these halls that leads to traffic jams."

The problem compounds during the evenings with no traffic policeman around to some what regulate the traffic.

Allahabad Municipal Corporation spokesperson S L Yadav refused to comment.