Commuters who park their vehicles at the Velachery railway station are still waiting for a parking contractor to be appointed by the Southern Railway.
It has been more than nine months since the railway station had a parking contractor. Those train users visiting the railway station on two-wheelers and cycles daily are parking their vehicles with a sense of fear over their safety.
More than 50,000 persons use the railway station and the parking yard located on the north side is predominantly used by the commuters for parking their vehicles. With the railway station having no parking contractor to take care of the sprawling parking yard, it has become an easy picking for anti-social elements to steal vehicles. Particularly, bi-cycles have become prime targets for the offenders, as it is hard to identify the cycles and can be easily taken away in the ‘blacked out’ parking yard.
M. Ramesh, a resident of Kathiravan Nagar in Velachery, had parked his new bicycle at the parking yard on Sunday last week and, on returning from his workplace in the evening, was shocked to find no trace of his cycle. He rued that even if any complaint was lodged with the station master, no positive steps were being taken to safeguard the vehicles in the yard.
Several railway stations on the MRTS section remain without parking contractors throughout the year, resulting in commuters facing severe hardships. Moreover, with the Velachery railway station being used as a multi-modal hub, the commuters want the Southern Railway to take steps at the earliest to appoint a railway contractor.
A senior official of the Southern Railway said tenders had been called for parking contractors at the Chepauk, Mundagakanni Amman, Indira Nagar and Triplicane railway stations. At the Velachery railway station, parking contractors are not evincing any interest to the parking tender called earlier, he added.
