Title - Officials inspect prepaid auto stand

Chennai: Officials of southern railway, government railway police (GRP), metro rail, state transport department and auto drivers at Che­n­nai Central on Thursday held discussion to resolve the problem in continuing prepaid auto service at the station.

The officials inspected the prepaid auto stand to assess the probability of operating autos from the existing location. Prepaid auto service at Central station was nearly shut last week after traffic police objected to the autos operating along EVR Peri­yar Salai.

The autos were fo­r­ced to move to the road af­ter Chennai metro rail ac­quired more land there for constructing the station.

DC brought this to light last week and exposed how the travelling public was forced to shell out additional bucks owing to the minimisation of prepaid auto service at Central.

Traffic department was learnt to be averse to considering railway and GRP’s suggestion that the autos be allowed to operate from old location and exit through the entrance near Victoria Hall.

A senior railway official said the stand has capacity to accommodate up to 80 of the total 360 autos.

In any given time, only around 100 autos would be at the station and the rest would be moving around the city and hence it would be possible to accommodate 80 and odd autos in the existing place, the official added.

However, the prepaid au­tos are still some distance away from returning to th­eir old stands as traffic de­partment has not given its nod as yet and even worse, the railway department does not have alternate land there to accommodate the autos.