The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Less crowd at bus stand, less revenue for shops

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Monday, Mar 17, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Less crowd at bus stand, less revenue for shops

Staff Reporter

Poor maintenance of Chengam bus stand cited as reason

The local body finds it difficult to collect monthly rent from the shop-owners, which affects its revenue

Photo: D. Gopalakrishnan

Calling for attention: The bus stand, which leaves a lot more to be desired. —

CHENGAM: Owners of the shops located inside the Chengam bus stand are dejected owing to lack of business, which they attribute to poor maintenance of the premises.

But for a couple of local buses, no other vehicles come inside the bus stand, thereby reducing the passenger movement, they said.

Rs. 35 lakh

According to some of the shop-owners, the bus stand had not been properly maintained ever since it was constructed at the cost of Rs. 35 lakh in 1996. The Chengam town panchayat had not upgraded the facilities inside the premises. The local body officials, however, said that they did not have enough funds to develop the bus stand.

The town panchayat had also lost revenue from the bus stand owing to poor maintenance, the shop owners said. The bus stand could generate good revenue as buses to Bangalore, Hosur, Krishnagiri, Tiruvannamalai and Tirupattur stopped at Chengam. But none of them entered the premises. The passengers boarded the buses on the Chengam-Tiruvannamalai Main Road.

Unable to pay rent

The town panchayat had let out the shops for three years. The shop-owners had paid the full tender amount for the whole period. However, not many were getting good business, some of the owners claimed.

One of them also said that he had no money to pay the rent.

Enquiries revealed that the local body found it difficult to collect the monthly rent from the shop owners, which had affected its revenue. This had also hit the development works in the town.

The town panchayat had built a pay-and-use toilet inside the bus stand. However, not many people paid money to use the facility.

Excessive collection

There had also been allegations of excessive collection of fee at the toilet.

A person manning the facility, on condition of anonymity, said that he was forced to charge a higher rate to compensate for the deposit amount paid to the town panchayat.

As a result, many persons urinated in the open.

Rs. 25 lakh to be spent

When contacted, the local body officials said that the town panchayat council recently adopted a resolution to spend Rs. 25 lakh from the General Fund to carry out minor works inside the bus stand.

A major portion of the money would be spent on laying cement flooring.

However, some shop-owners said that the cement flooring would not be of much help.

Buses did not come inside the bus stand owing to the lack of enough space.

Expanding the bus stand would perhaps improve the situation. But to facilitate this, the space in the nearby areas, which had been encroached upon, should be acquired.

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