The Hindu      09.08.2010

Plan to acquire 200 acres for new bus stand

S.Ganesan

TIRUCHI: The Tiruchi Corporation has planned to acquire about 203 acres of land, at a tentative investment of Rs.8.28 crore, for setting up an integrated bus stand at Panchapur, off the Tiruchi-Madurai National Highway in the outskirts of the City.

The Corporation has firmed up the proposal following recent inspections of the site by the Deputy Chief Minister M.K. Stalin and other senior officials of the Department of Municipal Administration.

The proposal would now be forwarded to the government for approval after getting the nod of the Corporation Council. The new bus stand is planned to be established in a major portion of a 244.28 acre site identified in Panchapur. Of this, about 40.72 acres were government poromboke and the remaining 203.56 acres were private lands. The integrated bus stand would include a separate terminal for omni buses.

A truck terminal, a business arcade and parking lots are also planned at the site. A part of the site could also be used for establishing a convention centre, officials told The Hindu.

The civic body has finally settled on this site after extensive deliberations on the issue over the past decade. At least five other sites, including Ariyamangalam Corporation garbage dump and the Army shooting range at Mannarpuram, were considered by an official committee before the Corporation zeroed in on the Panchapur site.

Another site at Devadhanam was rejected after the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board refused a mandatory no-objection certificate as it was too close to the Cauvery River.

Corporation officials contend that the site was ideally suited for establishing an integrated bus stand as it was being connected to major national highways around through a new by-pass road already sanctioned.

Sources also dismissed apprehensions that the site could be flood prone. For, all the recently four-laned highways around have been built on a higher plane and this would prevent any major flooding in the area, it was contended.

Emphasising the need for an integrated bus stand, they pointed out that over 2,245 bus services were operated from the existing Central Bus Stand, situated in just about six acres of land, in the City. Besides, 7,975 buses pass through the bus stand every day. Over one lakh passengers use the bus stand every day.