No parking space in Nainital? U'khand HC orders app to help tourists

NAINITAL: Planning a road trip to Nainital but not sure whether you will get parking? If the Uttarakhand high court has its way, help could soon be at hand ​in the form of an app.

The Uttarakhand high court has asked the district administration and the Nainital hotel association to develop a smartphone app that will enable tourists to book parking slots before arriving in the town. The court in its order on Friday ​ also ​directed the district administration to immediately start construction on two new parking facilities on the outskirts of the town.

Tourists to the city of lakes have been facing severe parking problems and bumper-to-bumper traffic on most days. The town has parking space only for 2,000 four-wheelers. In contrast, 4,000 tourist cars arrive in Nainital every day in the peak season which lasts from May 1 to June 30. The number swells up to 6,000 vehicles on weekends.

Nainital has only two open spaces, Flat Grounds and Metropol, which are used as public parking spaces, and a multi-storey parking in Sukhatal. The remaining cars are often parked on the road side leading to traffic jams.

On Friday, the division bench of justices U C Dhyani and Sudhanshu Dhuliya while hearing a PIL filed by Ajay Singh Rawat in 2012, which sought to declare Nainital as an eco-sensitive zone, said that a smartphone application that allows tourists to book parking slots in public parking spaces in advance should be developed.

Dinesh Chand Sah, president of the Nainital hotel association, said, “The court asked the hotel association to coordinate with the district administration to create a mobile application through which tourists will be able to pre-book parking spaces. We have already contacted tech companies in Delhi and Bengaluru for development of this app.”

Nainital district magistrate Dipendra Kumar Chaudhary told TOI, “The mobile app will help combat congestion in the town. Tourists who are unable to book parking spaces will have to park in the outskirts. Shuttle service will be provided to them to reach the town.”

The court also directed the district administration to start construction work on a multistorey parking in Narayan Nagar at Kaladhungi road, 7km from Nainital town. The district administration informed the court that it has already identified four acres of land for the parking and estimated the cost of the project to be Rs 50 cror

The bench asked the administration to build another parking facility at the trijunction at Bhowali Road which would be able to accommodate up to 700 cars. The two new parking facilities will be able to accommodate 2,000 more cars.

Earlier, taking a strict note of parking woes in Nainital, the court had asked district administration on July 3 to “seal hotels, guesthouses and homestays that do not have space that is at least 50% of their accommodation capacity for parking of vehicles” by September 15. The district administration had issued notices to 77 hotels in this regard on September 4.

The high court had said that it was compelled to take notice of the alarming traffic situation in Nainital after the district administration and police department submitted a report that an estimated 4,000 vehicles had entered Nainital during peak season in mid-June this year.

The court had remarked, “4,000 vehicles is far too many vehicles for Nainital at a given point of time. All hotels in the town put together have a parking facility between 500 to 1,000 vehicles, at a very liberal estimate.” The bench observed that public parking spaces in the town were able to accommodate only up to 400 vehicles. “

"During the peak season in Nainital, more than 2,500 vehicles were parked at public places i.e. on roadsides, outside hotels and residential areas, causing massive traffic jams and immense inconvenience to the public, which continued unabated," the court had said.

TOI