Puri: Absence of proper ‘Parking Facility’ at Swargadwar, Puri is posing serious problem for the people visiting the cremation ground to conduct last rites of their near and dear.
While the State Government has improved a lot in Puri’s Sacred Crematorium for a proper cremation, however, there is little space for parking of vehicles as the authorities have overlooked at the issue.
As per the age-old belief of the Hindus, ‘Swarga’ means heaven and ‘Dwara’ means gateway.
Hence, ‘Swargadwara’ is deemed as the ‘Gateway to Heaven’. Generally the Hindus believe to end their life in this holy place of Puri to get an access to heaven for ultimate salvation as the soul gets liberated here.
‘Swargadwara’ here is in the sandy beach towards the south western corner of this pilgrim town.
People from all over the state, especially coastal Odisha, come to Puri Swargadwar, a place of faith for cremation. Large number of corpses is received here every day and most of the family members come with four-wheelers.
Worse here is parking problem. The parking lot available at present is hardly for a dozen vehicles. That is being an apple of discord everyday here.
And there is no place for changing of clothes here, people prefer to do so inside their cars for which they struggle to park their respective vehicles near this crematorium
It’s a matter concern as in the sad hours people are force to break Law and park on the lane, leaving little space for vehicular movement.
If one gets a small space to park the vehicle, City Police chase away the vehicle owners if someone finds a little space on the side of the road. There are hotels in and around Swargadwara and hardly there is any space left for parking.
City Police also admit that they are undone as nobody has clue, as to where to find space for parking vehicle. The situation is such that relatives in such a sad hour are forced to travel one or one-and-a-half kilometer away from Swargadwar to park their vehicles.
The lanes and by-lanes in and around Swargadwara have now been encroached upon by the hawkers and small shop keepers.
While the cremation system at Swargadwar is in order, there is a huge demand to make arrangements for parking facility, at least for the hearse vans and large number of vehicles of people reaching here for cremation of corpses.