The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Why residents don’t stand them

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Friday, Jan 30, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Why residents don’t stand them

R. Srikanth

— Photo: M.Vedhan

INDIFFERENT TO ORDER: Haphazard parking of the vehicles is one of the complaints against autorickshaw stands in several localities in Chennai.

CHENNAI: The increase in the number of autorickshaws on the city roads has meant mushrooming of stands for the vehicles, many of which are allegedly unauthorised.

Apart from their illegal status, what irks people living near many of the stands are the associated problems, including the three-wheeler drivers often chasing away autorickshaws of other stands from picking up passengers, and not allowing share autorickshaws to ply in their area.

R. Govindaraj, secretary, Exnora International, says several unauthorised autorickshaw stands have come up in different parts of the city. If one takes into account the benefits of having a stand in their locality, the negative aspects outweigh the usefulness. Some of the areas where the number of autorickshaws stands has increased include Velachery, Ayanavaram, Adambakkam, Perambur, Jawahar Nagar, Besant Nagar and Thiruvanmiyur.

One of the main reasons why the ‘stand autorickshaws’ are not preferred is the practice of the drivers to form a cartel and fix ‘fares’ to certain localities. Many of the drivers also refuse to ply to some localities.

Besides the demand for exorbitant fares, another common complaint against the autorickshaw stands is their location.

Many of them have come up near street corners, resulting in traffic woes for other road users.

Last month, an autorickshaw stand came up at the heavily crowded junction of Purasawalkam High Road and Subramaniam Street creating traffic bottlenecks in the area.

M. Selvam, a resident of Subramaniam Street, said setting up such a stand seems to be an easy task as in this case a group of drivers installed a board on the street corner and parked three to four autorickshaws.

With the street only 18 feet wide, the parking of the three-wheelers on either sides of the narrow road affected access to the street for the residents.

The residents hope the traffic police would act fast on a representation that they submitted seeking removal of the stand.

Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Sunil Kumar said though the roads come under the purview of the Chennai Corporation, the power of granting permission to set up autorickshaw stands rested with the traffic police.

The procedure for establishing an autorickshaw stand requires a group of the drivers to submit an application to the traffic police, requesting space for a stand in a particular street or area.

A police personnel would inspect the place to ascertain the views of the residents.

Only after being satisfied that the proposed stand would in no way create traffic bottlenecks, the traffic police accord permission by issuing a certificate, with a set of conditions, valid for a year.

The conditions include that not more than five autorickshaws should be parked; the vehicles should be parked in such way that they do not create traffic bottlenecks; parking and picking up passengers from the stand would be allowed for any autorickshaw subject to the condition that they follow a queue system.

A notice board giving name of the auto stand should be placed and no individual names would be permitted on it, according to autorickshaw unions.

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