The civic body has handed over the Vellalore bus stand project to the National Highways wing of the State Highways Department.
Sources said that the civic body had handed over the detailed project report it had prepared over two years ago to establish the bus stand near its dump yard in Vellalore on a 60-acre land at ₹ 236 crore.
The Corporation’s plan was to utilise the funds under the Smart Cities Mission stating that the establishment of an integrated bus stand would help de-congest the wards that were part of the ‘area-based development’ component of the Mission.
The Ministry of Urban Development did not approve of the use of Mission fund for the bus stand. The Corporation too could not afford to take up the bus stand work with its fund.
The National Highways wing was expected to take up the project under the National Corridors Efficiency Programme Component of the Bharatmala Pariyojana scheme of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
The sources said that the Ministry was expected to completely fund the project, not only for Coimbatore but for Salem and Madurai as well. But to decide on how much the project would cost, the National Highways wing engineers were studying the Corporation’s detailed project report to see if they could go ahead with the same design and financial plan or change it.
Only after they decide on the design, they would finalise the financial plan, whether to go in for a public-private partnership model or go in for other partnership model.
The sources said that the project would, however, include external development – that is, development of road that lead to the bus stand, for the present width of the roads did not suit the requirements of bus stands.
