Remove all vehicles from pavements, Madras HC orders Chennai Corporation

Chennai: The Madras high court has directed officials of Greater Chennai Corporation, in coordination with the traffic wing of Chennai City Police, to take "immediate, necessary and appropriate steps" as a first measure to remove the vehicles which are parked on city pavements without authorisation.

Passing further interim orders on a PIL from Vandana Zachariah, a charted accountant from Kilpauk, a division bench comprising Justices M.Sathyanarayanan and N.Seshasayee said the Commissioner, Greater Chennai Corporation is required to file additional Status Report as to the enumeration and identification of vending zones in respect of all 15 zones in terms of the Street Vending Act 2014 with supporting documents and photographs.

As per the earlier direction of the bench, the Commissioner, Greater Chennai Corporation was present before the court and filed an additional Status Report. Recording the same, the bench said the Commissioner, Greater Chennai Corporation submitted that with the help of traffic police will take stringent action against unauthorised parking.

The civic official submitted that in the City of Chennai, approximately 54 lakhs two wheelers and 11.75 lakhs four wheelers were plying and the land available for parking slots to enable the needs of around three lakhs vehicles both on-street parking and off-street parking were identified and a proposal has also been mooted to put up multilevel car parking to address the said problem and sought time to file a comprehensive Status Report in this regard, the bench added.

The bench said the court, during the course of hearing, has put a question that recently in Pondy Bazaar, T.Nagar, Chennai, newly laid platforms have been
inaugurated by the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu as part of the smart city program and in the light of the past experience in the form of unauthorised parking of two-wheelers and unauthorised occupation of hawkers over the extended pavements, what were the steps being taken to abate such a kind of nuisance/unlawful activities.

Additional advocate general P.H.Arvindh Pandian submitted that the services of some private agencies were to be engaged to address the said problem and their services will be slowly expanded to other areas also.