Chennai: CMRL commuters are sore over the steep hike in the monthly parking fees at eight Metro stations in the city. The fees increased from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 for motorcycles and from Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,500 for four-wheelers in the Airport Metro Station. The CMRL has hiked the fees citing increased demand for parking.
The tariff has gone up for two-wheelers from Rs 250 to Rs 500 and for cars from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 in Thirumangalam, Anna Nagar East, Ashok Nagar, Guindy, Mannadi, Nanganallur Road and Meenambakkam metro stations. In other stations, CMRL collects a monthly parking fee of Rs 250 for motorcycles and Rs 500 for cars.
Chennai Metro collects daily parking tickets ranging from Rs 10 to Rs 40, depending on the kind of vehicle and the number of hours the vehicle is parked at a station. The Chennai Metro generates revenue of about Rs 1.9 lakh a day from parking alone.
According to an official source, the CMRL resorted to the hike as there was huge demand for parking vehicles at select stations. Parking lots in these stations gets full quickly in the morning itself. Metro is unable to provide space for everyone in the limited area.
Hence, CMRL realised that once the fee goes up, it could ease congestion and the demand for monthly passes would come down and people would start buying regular daily parking tickets, which is very cheap.
