Auto, taxi owners irked over railway parking area beautification plan

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 4

The railway is in the process of providing seating arrangement at the place where autos used to be parked in the parking bay area of the city railway station.

In addition, it is going ahead to set up a museum at the TTE rest house, situated behind the parking area. The railway has conveyed about the beautification plan to auto and taxi operators here.

Auto union leader Ritesh Dhawan has irked over the railways beautification plan at the parking area. He said this would reduce their parking area. He added that taxi operators were not against the plan, but it should not be at the cost of our livelihood.

He questioned the doubling of roads from two to four lane when one road ever remained closed.

He said the place where about 125 autos used to be parked, would be turned into a sitting area. He added that they could not park their autos at the elevated area. He claimed that beggars and street urchins would use the sitting space as passengers would not come out of the station to sit here. Earlier, they used to park around 125 autos at the space, he said. He stated that the Jalandhar railway station had offered space for parking of 80 autos.

Manjit Singh, a leader of the taxi union, said, “Forty taxi drivers have been paying Rs 1,200 per month license fee to the railways for parking their vehicles.” Taxi operators were asked to restrict themselves to 60-meter area, which is enough to park about 10 four-wheelers. Earlier, they had been given enough area to park about 40 taxis.

Divisional Railway Manager, Ferozepur Division, Rajesh Aggarwal, said the beautification and development of local railway station was undergoing. He added that all sections would be provided suitable space in the station.