The Hindu : Royalty row deprives bus passengers of shelters

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 03, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

Royalty row deprives bus passengers of shelters

By Akila Dinakar

CHENNAI May 2. Commuters continue to suffer sans bus shelters in several places as the row over royalty for bus shelters by the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) to the Highways Department intensifies.

Despite over 15 reminders from the MTC to the Highways Department seeking permission for building bus shelters on six Highways in Chennai, the Department, which promised to get back to the Corporation in seven days, has taken over three months now with no sign of response.

Following removal of shelters at Jaya Nagar and Ambal Nagar bus stops, the MTC wrote to the Highways. Sources said the issue of sharing the royalty amount for the bus shelters, constructed on Highways land, had to be sorted out between the Secretary, Transport and Highways. ``Even if the Government is going to say that the MTC has to pay royalty to the Highways, we have to abide by the order'', an official said pointing out that the delay by the Highways in granting permission pending the decision was affecting commuters.

Sources said glow-sign bus shelters, which earned a royalty for the MTC from the advertisers--private, Government and quasi-Government, was now a sore point due to its popularity. In 1975, the Chennai Corporation handed over to the MTC the task of putting up bus shelters stating its difficulty in constructing and maintaining the same. ``With the Highways laying stress on payment of royalty, the Chennai Corporation is now awaiting the decision for making a similar demand on the Transport Corporation'', another senior official remarked.

With permission for construction of shelters in three places where it was removed not forthcoming from the Highways, the MTC has sent proposals for building shelters in 10 places at Saidapet, Guindy, 100-feet Road, Vadapalani, Tirumangalam, Ambal Nagar, Jaya Nagar and Poonamalee High Road.

While the Highways Department officials were not available for comment, MTC sources said ``if it was the Government decision that the even the entire royalty amount has to go to the Highways, we have to pay''.

In another incident, a bus shelter opposite Datamatics on TTK Road, Alwarpet, was unauthorisedly removed by a private group nine months ago. As the MTC had ``received threatening calls'' from the private group which removed the shelter and ``the police refused to accept a complaint preferred in this regard'', another shelter was constructed 10 feet away from the earlier one at the bus stop, in the last week of April.

In a fax to the MTC, local residents said, "We are yet to understand why the bus stop should not be provided in the old place when there is no specific ground for relocation, to put the bus shelter in the old existing place''. The residents want the shelter in the old place where the bus continues to stop and not in the new location.

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