To alleviate urban traffic congestion and restore pedestrian safety across city’s footpaths, Municipal Commissioner Dr Vipin Itankar chaired a high-level review meeting on ‘On-Street Parking and Street Vendors Management’ at Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) Headquarters, Civil Lines, on Thursday. The meeting was attended by Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Aditya Mirkhelkar, NMC Deputy Commissioner Mangesh Khawale, Chief Engineer Leena Upadhye, Executive Engineer Alpana Patne, alongside experts from Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), PDA Pune, and Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE). During the session, ITDP India presented a strategy for zone-wise street selection and on-street parking management.

 

Dr Itankar directed the NMC Project Department to immediately appoint consultants to collect accurate road data, announcing a joint workshop involving the NMC, Traffic Police, Nagpur Improvement Trust (NIT), Public Works Department (PWD), and MahaMetro to ensure inter-departmental synergy. Additionally, following a presentation by PDA Pune, Dr Itankar instructed the implementation of a pilot project across 10 major roads in Dharampeth and Laxmi Nagar zones for organised vendor management. Expert organisation IRTE also submitted comprehensive designs to upgrade and beautify major city intersections for smoother transit. The move is seen as a measure to overcome challenges in tackling encroachments on part of food vendors and others on city streets. In past NMC talked about setting-up exclusive food zones to house food vendors, but the policy never took off. Now, the civic bosses look serious to go ahead with proper street markets that would also create space for off street parking of vehicles.