I received a mail from Satish Sapra who talks about issue of encroachment of public places. He says, “In the issue of TODAY dated 24 November 2004, you have rightly pointed out one of the main causes of traffic jams and unwieldy parking of vehicles in the residential areas of Delhi, is encroachment of public places, be it road or pavement. “In the residential colonies, the illegal encroachment by residents has left very little space for parking. If it is not encroachment, per se, keeping earthen pots blocks it, which further narrows the available road space for public use.“Because of lack of space available for parking, there have been cases of hot exchanges between the neighbours and some times police had to intervene with no permanent solution. The scenes of abuses and fights are very common these days. In one of the cases, the bullets were used. If this continues, time is not far when there will be often cases of murders due to lack of parking space. “Therefore, it is most urgent for the authorities to demolish the encroachments on the main roads as well as in the colonies, in order to ease the situation. RWAs should also play a proactive role to persuade the residents to demolish the encroachments and leave the space for public usage. Your efforts to shake the authorities and the RWAs for this visible solution will be very much appreciated.”Delhi’s biggest problem is of encroachments and I think it is high time that traffic police, DDA and MCD should start looking at it seriously. With a joint effort they can easily get rid of these encroachments from Delhi roads.Traffic AdvisoryBJP is organising a rally and march from Ram Lila Ground to Parliament House today. Traffic will certainly get disrupted due to the march. The Delhi Traffic Police has made elaborate traffic arrangements to ensure that general traffic is not disrupted.In view of the march, the road network around Delhi Gate Crossing i.e., Jawahar Lal Nehru Marg, Subhash Marg, Bahadurshah Zafar Marg and Asaf Ali Road will be closed for all types of traffic during noon hours. No Heavy Goods Vehicle and Light Goods Vehicle shall be allowed on Ring Road between wazirabad Bridge and Nizamuddin Bridge. No slow moving traffic will be allowed to enter Ring Road from East Delhi.Bus services too will get affected. No bus service shall be allowed to ply around Ram Lila Maidan. All buses coming from Mathura Road, Shahjahan oad shall be diverted to take Bhairon Road and join Ring Road to reach their destination.Buses coming from West Delhi via Paharganj Bridge shall be curtailed at Paharganj to resume their return journey.Buses coming from East Delhi and using Delhi Gate crossing to go to Red Fort, Railway Station shall not be allowed to turn left from Rajghat crossing. They will go straight and use New Daryaganj Road.Similarly buses coming from Red Fort, Old Delhi Railway Station via Subhash Marg shall be diverted on New Deryaganj Road to continue their journey on Ring Road. Buses coming from Connaught Place side shall be diverted from Bhav Bhuti Marg to resume their return journey.In view of road closure, the congestion is expected on some roads. Motorists are requested to avoid these roads and use alternative roads to reach their destinations during noon hours.