Tiruchi Corporation pushes for a bus port

With consensus eluding the choice of a suitable site for the proposed integrated bus stand in the city, the Tiruchi Corporation is now pushing for the establishment of a bus port in the city under a Centrally sponsored programme.

The Corporation has sent a request, through the State government, to include Tiruchi under the list of cities where bus ports are planned to be established by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. A few months back, Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami had announced that bus ports are to be established in Salem, Coimbatore and Madurai in the State.

“We have already sent a request to the State government (for putting us in the list to be taken up with the Union Ministry),” a senior official of the Corporation told The Hindu on Monday. However, the Corporation would have to identify and provide the site for the proposed bus port.

The modern bus terminals are to be established through the National Highways Authority of India and possibly under the public-private partnership mode.

The site would have to be off one of the highways around the city, the official indicated. However, it remains to be seen whether the Centre would accede to the request.

The request has been made at a time when there is still no official word on the progress made with respect to the Chief Minister’s announcement on the government’s decision to establish the proposed integrated bus stand at Kottapattu in the city. Mr. Palaniswami had made the announcement during the MGR centenary celebrations here in October last year.

The bus stand was planned to be set up on a 70-acre site behind the Central Prison.

The announcement did not go down well and several civic activists had felt that Kottapattu was not the ideal location for a facility. There were calls for a rethink and consultation with the stake holders before finalising the project as it would have to meet the future requirements of the city.

However, officials remain tight lipped on the status of the proposal. But indications are that the proposal to establish the bus stand at the Kottapattu site may not come through.

Meanwhile, civic activists continue to rue the lack of tangible progress on the proposal that gained ground in the mid 1990s.

Many still believe that the land held by the Defence Ministry at Mannarpuram is the ideal location for the bus stand.

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