CHENNAI: Days after TNIE reported on the menace of touts on General Patters Road, Anna Salai, the city police have issued notices to around 40 car accessories outlets in the hub to stop employing touts to bring in customers.
A higher official in the Anna Salai police confirmed that notices were issued based on the TNIE story that was published on September 23. The notice read, “Intermediaries employed by you are creating panic among four-wheeler users visiting GP Road by intercepting the vehicles on the way, in turn disturbing movement of traffic.”
“It is majorly your responsibility to eradicate the menace. In the future, if we receive complaints, stringent action against you and such intermediaries would be initiated,” it added. The official said a separate four-member team, headed by a sub-inspector, has been formed to keep a watch.
Touts deployed at entry and exit points of the road were resorting to unscrupulous and predatory marketing practices to solicit customers who throng the place mainly to purchase car accessories. GP Road is a one-km-long stretch between a prominent restaurant chain on Anna Salai (opposite to Hazrath Syed Moosa Sha Khaderi Dargah) and Express Avenue’s entrance.
Sources said the touts, aged between 20 and 45, were deployed at all entry and exit points to the hub. They can be seen stopping cars on the busy road and tailing them on two-wheelers to convince the occupants to make purchases from select outlets. In return, such outlets offer a share of revenue to the touts for bringing in customers.