Parking at suburban stations; rlys directed to pass orders

The Madras High court today directed Railways to consider representation of a petitioner about poor passenger amenities like shelter and safe parking lots at suburban railway stations in and around Chennai and pass orders within three months.
The first bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice T S Sivagnanam, stated this when a PIL of one S Gnaneswaran came up for hearing.
The petitioner sought a direction to the Railway authorities to set right the problem within a time frame.
Gnaneswaran submitted that an average of at least 50,000 commuters use railway stations every day in the suburbs of Chennai but open areas are kept as parking lots for bicycles and two-wheelers.

As two-wheelers are parked for a whole day or at least 12 hours in open space, they gather rust and their life span is reduced. Moreover, Railways and its contractors collect heavy parking charges on an hourly basis without providing even basic facilities, he said.
Even the smallest of suburban stations account for about Rs 30,000 a day in parking fees alone, he said, adding that facilities like covered parking, however, are not provided.

Authorities and contractors employ only a handful of parking assistants, resulting in vehicle-users parking their vehicles haphazardly. Women were the worst hit, he said.
Noting that this problem exists even in such big stations like Chennai central, he said he had sent representations to authorities in January 2014 and again in April 2015, but no action had been taken so far. Hence he filed this petition.

The bench then directed the Railways to consider the representation and pass orders within three months.