More than a year ago the Coimbatore Corporation began efforts to shift the omni bus stand out of the Ganapathy stretch of Sathyamangalam Road. The reason was not difficult to fathom: traffic congestion on the road.
In August 2012, the Corporation sources said that the civic body had identified a 11.17-acre plot in Vilankurichi, north of the Codissia Trade Fair Complex. The Corporation said that 8.44 acre of the 11.17-acre plot belonged to the Boodhan Board. The rest belonged to individuals, from whom it would acquire the land. On the 8.44-acre land it would establish the bus stand and use the rest for constructing an 80-feet approach road.
While mooting the proposal the Corporation had also said that it planned to implement the proposal at the earliest as traffic congestion on the Sathyamangalam Road was getting worse by the day as the entry and exit of buses affected the movement of vehicles not only on the Sathyamangalam Road but also on the 100 Feet Road.
The presence of the 100 Feet Road junction only compounded the problem.
Consequent upon the decision, the Corporation sent a proposal to the district administration to forward a proposal to the Commissioner of Land Reforms as the land belonged to Boodhan Board. This was six months ago, the sources said.
Talking to journalists, Mayor S.M. Velusamy said that though the Corporation had mooted the proposal six months ago, nothing much had changed because the Revenue Department had not forwarded the proposal. It was regrettable that a project concerning city development had fallen victim to bureaucratic rep tapism.
Sources in the Revenue Department said that much before the Corporation mooted the proposal, the Department had received proposal from the Transport Department for establishing regional transport offices and a few Central Government establishments. The Department without delay had forwarded the proposal to the Commissioner for Land Reforms for further action.
At this stage the Department received the Corporation’s proposal and there was nothing much it could do. There was no other reason to the issue and attributing motives does not bode well for the city’s development.
