Fantastic news!! More than 1200 bus shelters in Chennai get facelift now!!
Next time, if you go to a bus shelter near your place, then don`t get surprised by its clean beautiful look!!
The Greater Chennai Corporation or GCC has deployed more than 2500 workers to clean more than 1200 bus shelters across Chennai. It is learnt that a total of 2541 GCC workers cleaned 1265 bus shelters in the city. These workers cleaned the spots around the bus shelters plus washed the railings with soap and removed posters etc. Information gathered is that a total of 95.7 tonnes of garbage and debris were cleared and as many as 4221 posters were removed.
The GCC workers made their presence felt in many roads in localities like ECR, OMR, Grand North Trunk Road in Madhavaram, 200 feet Road in Manali, Paper Mills Road in Perambur, Kolathur based Jambulingam Main Road. Vadapalani based P.T. Rajan Salai. As many as 78 bus shelters (that had damaged roofs, seating, railings etc) were identified by the GCC.
According to the GCC Commissioner Mr. J. Kumaragurubaran, the civic body has been getting complaints regarding bus shelters marred by electric cables, garbage and pits present in front of them. He spoke about how a first step mass cleaning drive was undertaken by the GCC from 6am till 8pm. As many as 3 members were deployed per a bus shelter.
It is worthy to mention here that out of a total of 1500 bus shelters across Chennai, maintenance of 700 bus shelters were struck in arbitration with the contractors. The contractors have taken the bus shelters for maintenance in 2015. The contractors approached court when GCC decided to tender out the remaining 750 bus shelters in the city. The contractors got a stay order from the court and this prevented GCC from opening bids. Point is that this leads to a huge revenue loss of Rs 46 crores annually for GCC.
The GCC Commissioner explained that evidence regarding the poor maintenance of the bus shelters would be shown in the next hearing. Fresh tenders for maintenance would be issued once the GCC gets court order in their favour.
