Nainital: On one hand when talks are going on between the district administration and hoteliers to streamline parking issues faced by tourists visiting the lake town, residents alleged that the administration is allotting all empty spots for parking, thus causing inconvenience to them.Activist and resident Pradeep Pandey said that the administration sees every empty spot as parking space. “This cannot continue and at some point you have to draw a line. Demarcating all common space as parking spots is violation of civil rights of the residents.”While the local residents are facing harassment due to traffic jams everywhere in the city, children are also annoyed as city’s playgrounds are also being used to park cars.Residents alleged that due to parking of heavy vehicles on these flat grounds, children are not getting any place to play.Aman Singh, a local football player, told TOI, “Our playgrounds have turned into parking lots. We get very little space to play in the ground. We are always afraid that our ball will not break the glass of any car. After all we will have to compensate for losses. We don’t know where to play now.”He added that there is no stadium in the entire city. “There is no place for us in the city where we can play,” said, Anshu Luthara, a class VIII student and a cricketer.Sonu Bisht, general secretary of district sports association Nainital, said, “We have barricaded the playing area of the stadium using ropes, and cars are parked outside. All tournaments are played in this barricaded area. Nainital has no other parking spot for tourist season, so we have to compromise somewhere.”Bisht added that the revenue generated from this temporary car parking lot is distributed between the municipality and the parking contractor, of which 60% goes to municipality and 40% earns by the contractor. “The municipality also gives a part of its income to our sports association,” he added.Pandey added, “For the district administration everything boils down to money. For a permanent solution to this problem proper planning is required. They just can’t take away the town’s playground .”Hotelier and activist Rajiv Lochan Sah echoed that proper planning is required to deal with all the problems that the city is facing, including water crisis.Rohitash Sharma, executive officer of Nainital municipality refused to comment when the reported asked him about the issue.

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