CHENNAI: After the Express report ‘Mall goers pay Rs 30 to park bikes on riverbed in Chennai’ on December 2, officials cleared the commercial parking lots on Cooum riverbed near Koyambedu last week.
Express had reported that visitors to a mall at Koyambedu were charged for parking in private parking spaces which were actually Cooum riverbed.
Soon after, these parking lots were removed and 221 families residing at Sathya Sai Nagar at Koyambedu were relocated to Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board tenements at Perumbakkam, as part of Cooum River Restoration Project.
“Many commercial encroachments within the Cooum river boundary including automobile service centres, parking lots and travel agencies were also removed,” said J Jayanth, social expert, Chennai Rivers Restoration Trust (CRRT).
These parking lots had been charging visitors `30 a day for parking their two-wheelers in spaces that they had demarcated on Cooum’s right of way as marked by Public Works Department. They typically made anywhere between `2000 to `3000 a day from this lucrative business.
On Saturday, five families at Chintadripet who were left stranded without allotments to new houses at Perumbakkam after their houses were razed under Cooum River Restoration Project, were issued allotment orders, after an Express report that was published the same day.