The Times of India     22.09.2010

Ensure quarters are built, HC to BBMP

BANGALORE: The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday directed the BBMP to ensure the immediate construction of 1,640 quarters for the Economically Weaker Sections ( EWS) at Ejipura and put displaced persons there at the earliest.

Justice Rammohan Reddy gave this direction while dismissing a petition filed by Mumbai-based Akruti City Ltd challenging the order of September 26, 2008 granting the project tender in favour of Ms Maverick Holdings Ltd.

He also imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on the petitioner and refused its counsel's plea for a stay on the verdict to enable it to file an appeal. Noorjan and Pyarejan had sought early project completion by filing a separate petition. Main petitioners Akruti City contended that in 2006, the tender was cancelled and later sought to be conferred on the same company based on tampered records and reports.

The Pioneer  14.09.2010

Nishu Mahajan | Chandigarh

In what comes as a big relief to the commuters in general, the UT Administration has decided to construct an underground parking lot at the Inter-State Bus Terminus in Sector-43 (ISBT-43) with a capacity for 500 cars and 2,000 two-wheelers.

“The underground parking project will avail the much-needed relief from parking blues at ISBT-43. The city administration will seek the approval from the Centre for the project, which would cost `16 crore,” said UT Home Secretary Ram Niwas.

The ISBT-43 provides bus service to all major destinations in the neighbouring States namely Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttaranchal.

The administration’s decision to come up with an underground parking at ISBT-43 will also relieved the travellers, who have to park their vehicles at ISBT, in view of their journey of more than a day. The underground parking to be constructed by the higher authorities will also ensure safety of the vehicles.

Home Secretary said that the construction of underground parking is required at ISBT-43 as nearly 500 cars and 2,000 two-wheelers are parked here everyday. During the weekends, it becomes difficult to find parking space at ISBT as the weekends witness a huge number of travellers.

As one can witness a huge number of two-wheelers and four-wheelers queuing up to find parking spaces in the city, it really raises a question whether it was Le Corbusier’s vision of the ‘City Beautiful’.

Chandigarh, which was designed and planned for a population of five lakh is now bursting at the seams with over 12 lakh inhabitants. Owing to the increased number of vehicles and ever-increasing population, the city denizens are now facing parking problems everywhere.

The city also leads in per capita number of vehicles. Chandigarh came into existence in 1966 and after one year, the city registered nearly 940 vehicles in 1967, but in 2001, the number shot up to 4,96,086 and in 2007, the total number of vehicles aggregated 6,69,715. That figure has crossed the 8.5 lakh mark now.

The vehicles can be seen lined up outside the main markets of city’s Sector-17, 19, 20, 22, 26, 34, 35 at peak hours during the week days and round-the-clock at weekends.

To ease the parking blues, the City Administration and the Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh has also planned to construct multi-level parking, multi-level parking and underground parking. Though the whole idea has been conceptualised and is yet to kickoff, it certainly brings some hope for the city residents so as to avert the problem of parking.

The city has over 22 paid parking lots and 60 parking lots that offer the facility for free, which together can provide space for nearly 25,000 cars. In city, finding parking space in main sectors like 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 22, 26, 34, 35 etc has also become problematic.