Chennai: The city’s only air-conditioned bus stop in Asargana near the Kathipara flyover in Alandur has remained shut for the past three months with fingers of blame being pointed at the state highways department for its closure.
The St Thomas Mount-Pallavaram Cantonment Board, in whose jurisdiction the AC stop is located, washed its hands clean as the Chief Executive Officer, Ajit Reddy, told DC that a private organisation responsible for the bus stop’s maintenance had shut it on its own citing maintenance.
“The agreement with the private party is that they would be responsible for the upkeep of the bus shelter. This is the second or third instance in the past few months that this has happened (shutting down). It is a breach of agreement. We will seek a written explanation from them,” Reddy said.
The private organisation in question is NTL cab service providers, who are tasked with housekeeping and maintenance of the facility. When contacted, G. Balaji, senior manager (operations) of the firm, squarely placed the blame on the state highways department.
“The highways department forced us to shut down the AC bus stop. We believe there is territorial dispute between the cantonment and the highways. I am not aware of the exact details,” Balaji said.
While highways department acknowledged its recent run-ins with the cantonment board, including when the former tore down the St Thomas Mount Post Office bus stop put up by the latter, only for the cantonment to once again restore it, they were non-committal on their involvement in the AC bus stop’s closure.
Repeated attempts to reach senior highways department officials failed.
But as ever, it is the public who has been pushed into misery due to this bureaucratic confusion.
Reportedly constructed on Rs 1.25 crore public-private partnership project, with the cantonment board providing the land, the bus stop was opened after several delays to much excitement among Chennaiites, as it was only the second AC shelter in Tamil Nadu following Kumbakonam.
But in under a month, patronage for the bus stop nosedived as commuters complained that the CCTV cameras fitted outside the shelter did not relay clear images to the TV screens fitted inside, and as a result they could not see which bus was arriving.
“I had to run out every time a bus arrived to see if it was my bus. Doing this on a regular basis was so tiring that I just decided to stand outside,” said R. Anupama, a regular commuter from Asargana. Though it was proposed to have ATM facility, coffee kiosk among others, the bus stop is now merely an advertising hoarding for the cantonment board to earn revenue. “There is a dispute in that also. The high court had ordered the cantonment to not advertise,” noted a highways official.
