Tamil Nadu govt planning SPV to manage parking spaces in Chennai

C Shivakumar

Chennai:

The state government is initiating action to identify parking spaces and to establish a separate special purpose vehicle to manage parking spaces in Chennai city in collaboration with Chennai Corporation.

The move comes in the wake of  the visit by Parliamentary Standing Committee on Urban Development to Chennai last month.

In reply to the panel’s query on whether the state government has started any pilot projects for providing parking space in Chennai following the increasing number of vehicles, the state government said that an action has been initiated under Chennai Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority.

Interestingly, Chennai is planning to have a parking management company on the lines of Hungarian capital Budapest to develop and manage quality parking lots.

It is believed that the State government is mulling on a proposal to establish Chennai City Parking Management Company to identify, develop and maintain parking lots.

The proposed company, which is likely to be set up under the Corporation, will not only prevent congestion but also increase the Corporation’s revenue manifold. Sources said that the company will also prevent revenue leakages.

“In the absence of effective parking management, informal systems come into play, leading to revenue leakages,” said a source.

The state government also told the panel that it is taking action to operationalise CUMTA to integrate various modes of public transport in Chennai such as bus, suburban trains, MRTS, metro rail and the proposed monorail. It was also revealed that Chennai Metro rail has already initiated action for common ticketing solution and for establishing a Central Clearing house System for the use of all public transport operators.

To a query on the status of feeder town bus services in Chennai, the state government told the panel that state owned public transport system has extended its area of operation from 40 km radius to 50 km radius. It also told the panel that planning and development wing of Metropolitan Transport Corporation along with CUMTA have been studying possibilities for providing more transport facilities of the growing city.

The state government also told the panel that that an allocation of Rs two crore has been made to to meet the preliminary expenses to construct monorail. The Mono Rail Project is initially planned for a length of 57 km. These include three corridors. The first corridor include Vandalur-Velachery (22.05 km), the second corridor is between Poonamallee – Kathipara Junction (15.84 km) and third is from Poonamallee to Vadapalani Junction (19.2 km).

The parliamentary panel was also informed that the selection of a successful bidder is under progress.

Interestingly, the state government is also planning to introduce monorail system in Tier-II cities where traffic is on rise. “The will raise the modal share of public transport from 27 per cent to 46 per cent,” the state government observed.