By: Vijay Kumar Verma, Editor-ICN Group
SHIMLA: A thirteen storied car parking with a facility to park about 850 small vehicles besides four buses was inaugurated by the state Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur here last evening. Built at a cost of Rs.83 crore, the parking lot also has other basic amenities for the general public.
The parking building is located at the bifurcation of Shimla – Dhalli byepass on which the city’s Inter State Bus Terminus was built and is just 3 km short of Shimla town. Facilities of local buses to the city are already available from this point.
Inaugurating the parking complex the Chief Minister said that this parking would go a long way in decongesting the flow of tourist vehicles to Shimla town. He said that this parking complex was probably one of the biggest projects in Shimla town.
He said that tourists from all over the country and world visit Shimla, and they used to face lot of inconvenience for parking their vehicles. Currently the town has a number of other parking facilities but they fall short of the tourists season rush.
There is a proposal to build a ropeway from this point linking ISBT and the Shimla town which will later greatly ease the traffic snarls on city roads.
Jai Ram Thakur said tourism development was the top priority of the state government for which all possible efforts would be made for external funding. He said that major thrust would be laid on developing unexplored and virgin areas from tourism point of view.
