Poor parking facilities outside commercial spots choke Western Hyderabad’s roads

Vehicles parked on the road obstructing the movement of traffic in the Jubilee Hills area in Hyderabad.
| Photo Credit: SIDDHANT THAKUR

Once a quiet residential quarter of the city, the western part of Hyderabad has gradually transformed into a commercial hotspot, now teeming with cafés, salons, boutique stores, and high-end restaurants. In just one stretch of road on Filmnagar, there are 13 upscale cafes. But this commercial boom has brought with it a chronic urban headache — parked vehicles spilling out onto the streets, choking arterial roads and turning short drives into gridlocked slogs.

With most of these businesses around Jubilee Hills and Banjara Hills lacking designated parking spaces, customers are left to fend for themselves, often leaving their cars parked along already narrow lanes. The result is familiar to anyone who has attempted to navigate Roads 36 or 45 on a weekend — chaos, honking, and a painful crawl through traffic.

Road safety expert Vinod Kanumula says this issue stems from how commercial licences are granted. “If you’re building a 20,000 sq. ft commercial property, you’re required to provide a certain amount of parking space. But thanks to corruption, occupation certificates are handed out without verifying these requirements. It happens even in government offices,” he says. “Now, west Hyderabad, once mostly residential, is being leased out for commercial use. Businesses either rent private land for valet parking or worse, let customers park on the road.”

Commuters are bearing the brunt. M. Bhavana, a daily commuter who works in Filmnagar, says: “Just getting through the stretch near the cafés has become a task. People leave their vehicles half on the road and half on the footpath. You can barely drive, let alone walk. Best way is to ditch the four-wheeler and go faster on your bike.”

Ravi Teja, a software professional from RTC X roads, adds: “I now avoid taking shortcuts through Jubilee Hills entirely. You end up taking three detours because some café decided to host a live music night with zero parking space.”

Experts also point to the absence of smart urban enforcement. Professor in JNTU Hyderabad K. M. Lakshman Rao notes that cities like Hyderabad suffer from a ‘deficiency of online monitoring’. “Shops should be spatially fenced so they’re forced to account for customer parking. Why are vendor vehicles parked along footpaths but not that of customers? There should be an obligation for vendors to ensure parking is available, and it must be tracked using computer vision technology,” he said.

Farzana Ahmed, long-time resident of Road No. 1, Banjara Hills said: “Every evening it’s the same story, people park right along the lane around Lamakaan. The place hosts some lovely events, but the parking mess it creates has made life miserable for those of us living next door.”

While the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) is responsible for clearing commercial licences, the traffic police say their hands are partially tied. A senior officer in the traffic wing said: “We do check for available parking before giving our clearance and recommend that establishments ensure parking on the same premises. Some are using adjacent empty plots. As for roadside parking, we’ve taken up night patrolling, particularly on Roads 45 and 36.”

The unchecked sprawl of commercial activity, coupled with weak enforcement and little foresight, has left Hyderabad’s western corridors in a perpetual state of gridlock.