Tourists and shoppers visiting Charminar, Gulzar Houz and Lal Bazaar are still struggling to find parking, after tenders for a proposed multi-level parking complex drew no response, a GHMC official said. The project is now stuck, and the people who pay the price are the visitors and traders who deal with the congestion every day.

The Old City’s busiest commercial and heritage precinct has no organised parking. Thousands of shops line the narrow streets around Charminar, Gulzar Houz and Lal Bazaar, selling traditional bangles, pearls, bridal wear, textiles, perfumes, footwear, imitation jewellery and other household goods. The same stretch draws people heading to the Charminar monument, Mecca Masjid and Chowmahalla Palace. For many of them, the first hurdle is not the shopping or the sightseeing. It is finding a place to leave the car.

The shoppers are already giving up. Visitors are being forced to park at a considerable distance from the shops, and that walk turns an outing into an ordeal. Every extra minute spent circling for a space adds to the traffic jam on streets that were never built for modern vehicle volumes. The result is a daily cycle of frustration that starts well before anyone reaches a storefront.

Mohd Azmathullah, a trader in the area, said the shortage of parking was hurting business directly. He described how the problem plays out on the ground, and his words capture what many merchants have been feeling for a long time.

“People want to spend time shopping and exploring the Old City, but they become frustrated even before reaching the shops. The traffic congestion and uncertainty over parking discourage many customers from coming here.”

Another shopper, Sharath Kumar, said he now thinks twice before going to the Old City, particularly to Lal Bazaar. He acknowledged what keeps people coming back: the variety and the prices. But he was blunt about the trade-off. Getting to the shops and finding a spot to park has become a major problem, and he warned that customers will simply choose other markets if nothing changes.

A solution exists on paper, but it has not moved. The proposed multi-level parking complex is planned for the Charminar bus stand and the premises of the Khilwath Old Pension Payment Office, also known as the Khazana Building. If the project is taken up and completed, it is expected to ease the pressure on the area. That is the promise. The reality is that the project has been held up, and visitors and traders are left to live with the same constraints they faced before.

A GHMC official confirmed the cause of the delay. Tenders invited for the proposed facility did not attract any response, and that silence has frozen the project. The civic body now has to deal with the tendering hurdle before anything can move forward. The official’s account makes clear that the bottleneck is procedural, not a question of whether the facility is needed.

That gap between need and progress is what angers the people in the area. The complex is not a new idea being floated for the first time. It is a proposal that has been held up while the congestion continues every day. Traders see customers turned away by the parking situation, and visitors see their trip to one of the city’s most famous monuments soured before they even get out of the vehicle.

Why this matters for Hyderabad and Telangana. Charminar is not just a shopping street. It is one of the most recognisable heritage sites in the city, and it sits in the middle of a commercial district that depends on footfall. Heritage tourism and commercial activity are concentrated in the same congested stretch, which means one problem feeds the other. When shoppers stay away, local businesses suffer. When tourists struggle to park, the city’s image as a welcoming heritage destination takes a hit. For a state capital that wants to draw visitors and keep its traditional markets alive, a stalled parking project in the Old City is more than a local irritation.

Shopkeepers in the area say the absence of adequate parking remains a persistent hurdle. It is not a passing inconvenience that shows up during festival season or on weekends. It is a constant feature of life around Charminar, and it has been shaping decisions about whether to visit at all. Customers who would otherwise spend money in the Old City are choosing to shop elsewhere, because the drive is simply too stressful.

The immediate question is simple. The civic body must resolve the tendering problem so the multi-level complex can be taken up and finished. Until that happens, the parking crunch around Charminar, Gulzar Houz and Lal Bazaar will keep wearing down the people who work in the area and the people who come to see it. Traders are still waiting. Visitors are still circling the same streets. And the project that was supposed to ease the pressure is still sitting on paper.