Resurfacing Mosque Parking Lot Creates Traffic Congestion at LHH Road

Resurfacing Mosque Parking Lot Creates Traffic Congestion at LHH Road

Mangaluru: Mangaluru City Corporation’s kind gesture of pleasing one community has put other communities to face inconveniences near Lighthouse Hill Road- the stretch of road leading towards St Aloysius College-Mangaluru. Whether to blame the poor planning of the MCC officials or the contractor who is handling this project – but whoever is responsible for this shabby and irregular work needs to be taken to task.

It’s nice of MCC to undertake this project, in order to resurface the once dilapidated area with interlock bricks around the Idgah Mosque located on Light House Hill Road. But while resurfacing the parking lot, the contractor has extended a bit further towards the road leading towards St Aloysius College-Mangaluru- and also since the border of the mosque parking lot has been barricaded with bricks, has made the movement of traffic on this stretch unbearable and very chaotic. With vehicles of thousands of students of St Aloysius College passing through this stretch of road, and also many tourist buses/vans etc also using this road for sightseeing of St Aloysius Chapel- it is a mess already.

Apart from the moving traffic, many tourist vehicles are parked on either side of the road- and to add more congestion there is also an auto-rickshaw stand near the curve of the road. With the present structure of the project, it has been very hard for bigger vehicles to make a turn at the end of the curve, resulting in traffic back-up. In order to address and rectify this issue, the management of St Aloysius Institutions had arranged a meeting with the MCC area ward corporator A C Vinayaraj this morning. (Wednesday, 9 January)

Both the College management and Corporator having discussed the issue with the project contractor, wherein the Corporator directed the Contractor to pull back the already laid bricks barricades little further into the parking lot so that there would be more space left on the road for the easy movement of the traffic. After long negotiations between the two parties, the issue was resolved, and it was also decided to notify MLA J R Lobo about the proceedings.

Having all said and done, now the commuters will have to wait with their fingers crossed as to when the issue will be rectified so that they could have a smooth drive or ride on this stretch of the road. Hope it will be a happy ending for this traffic/chaos related issue-after all simple issues like this one needs to be settled peacefully and happily!