Dealers morose as workspace is lost

For decades GP road has been synonymous with one thing - car and bike accessories, from anywhere in the world. Even when the road was initially made one-way half a decade ago, their business remained intact and cops looked the other way, as they slowly moved their businesses off the road and occupied an entire lane.Today, with the increased traffic flow, the car ‘jewellers’ have literally lost out on their work space, “Policemen come by every half an hour and chain or deflate the tyres of any vehicles parked on the road,” complains Sameer, who is the third-generation car accessory shop owner, here. “We have no choice now. If we can do it on the pavement we do it, or else we take it to the small gullys behind here,” he says, and adds, "This is a turn-off for customers with expensive cars as they dislike having their vehicles taken into slum-like narrow lanes and dismantled there." The only people who are hit worse are their touts, who are effectively out of business, “Now shopkeepers themselves hardly have any business so they find customers. They don’t need us to pull customers and bring them here,” says Akash Rai, an erstwhile tout on GP Road. Today, he has started work as a waiter in a vegetarian hotel, nearby.