In a bid to decongest the city by redirecting city and outstation buses to its periphery, the Coimbatore Corporation will soon construct a new bus stand in Vellalore.
To begin the construction process, the Corporation has floated tender for the bus stand for ₹ 168 crore.
It will receive bids till October 24, scrutinise the bids in the next few days and then award contract.
Sources in the Corporation said the proposed bus stand would have 140 bus bays to accommodate outstation buses, 33 bays for city buses, space to accommodate 100-plus two-wheelers for parking and another 100-odd bays for idle parking.
As for passenger amenities, the bus stand would have 71 shops, seven offices for transport corporations, 11 places to house ATMs, two restaurants, three commercial office space and two dormitories.
The Corporation had planned to build the bus stand with those facilities in the first phase and expand it to accommodate omni buses in the second phase. The proposed bays to house omni buses would be around 80. The sources also said the new bus stand would help de-congest Gandhipuram and Singanallur as buses operating out of the Gandhipuram city bus stand, a few buses operating from the outstation bus stand, also in Gandhipuram, and buses plying from the Ukkadam and Singanallur bus stands would start operating from the new bus stand.
Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation sources said the organisation operated around 1,000 buses from the bus stands and each of those made an average of 10 trips a day.
And, then there are private city buses, which would also start operations from the new bus stand.
Expressing doubts over the Corporation’s objective of de-congesting the city by constructing a new bus stand, District Road Safety Committee member and consumer activist K. Kathirmathiyon said it appeared that the Corporation had also included Mettupalayam and Sathyamangalam buses in designing and constructing the new bus stand and that would serve no purpose as the buses would have to travel through the city to reach the bus stand.
The Corporation should have first sought opinion from the members of the public and held a stakeholders meeting before going ahead with the bus stand project. That it had not done so only showed that the Corporation was more keen on only the construction and not how useful the facility would be.
And, the proposed bus stand in Vellalore could turn out to be another Mettupalayam Road bus stand.
Concurring with his view, the TNSTC sources said problems would definitely arise if the Corporation wanted the buses connecting the city to Mettupalayam and Sathyamangalam to be taken to Vellalore.
After the issue was flagged off at the District Road Safety Committee meeting, the Collector had called for a meeting, which could throw more light on which buses go where.
The Corporation sources said the Vellalore bus stand would serve buses plying to destinations east and south of the city. As for buses plying to towns and cities to the north of the city, the Corporation would work with the TNSTC to arrive at a solution.
Referring to the dilemma, Mr. Kathirmathiyon said the very fact that the State Government had taken up the Coimbatore bus stand project and not the Central Government, as originally intended, only showed that the Corporation was unable to satisfactorily respond to queries posed by the Central Government.
The bus stand, as proposed by the Corporation, would have entry and exit points on the Podanur-Chettipalayam Road, which would only cause congestion in the area. And, buses proceeding to destinations in the east would have to pay toll to take the Chengapalli-Walayar highway, he pointed out.
Further, the Corporation should take into account a Madras High Court division bench order that had allowing buses plying to destinations that were less than 55km from the city to use the Gandhipuram bus stand and only those travelling beyond 55 km to stop at either Singanallur or Ukkadam, he cautioned.
The Corporation sources added the civic body had taken cognisance of such issues. In fact, there was a move to widen the two-lane Podanur-Chettipalayam Road to four lanes.
