VELLORE: The Vellore Corporation has come up with a proposal to expand and modernise the existing new bus stand along the Palar river. The members of the State Assembly Estimation Committee, who came to Vellore on Thursday, visited the bus stand and held discussions with the Corporation officials in this regard.
Led by MLA A Papasundaram, the 10-member panel listened to the officials, who explained about the proposal and how it would be useful for passengers.
Collector R Nanthagopal and other senior officials attached to various departments were also present on the occasion.
Mayor Karthiyayini, who led the official committee from the Corporation, told Express that the purpose of the proposal was to revamp the existing bus-stand with additional facilities and amenities.
Since Vellore is closer to neighbouring States of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, the passenger flow had been increasing steadily, underlining the need for the expansion of the bus-stand. Since the existing new bus-stand was started in an unplanned manner 10 years ago, the local body had submitted a proposal to the tune of `17 crore in 2012 to provide additional facilities. This would be revised now with the new proposal to the tune of `35 crore, that had been prepared by a third-party consultancy agency hired by the Corporation in this regard and the proposal was expected to be ready shortly.
Karthiyayini said the thrust of the proposal would be on providing better amenities and more infrastructure facilities to meet the demands of locals and passengers from other places.
According to the proposal, the revamped bus-stand would have refreshment stalls, shops, cloak rooms, modern toilets, sanitary ward offices, free urinals, clock tower, closed circuit television network, information centre, ATMs, police outpost, telephone booths, passenger waiting halls and high-mast lightings. The gist of the new proposal was explained to the Assembly panel and they have promised to take up the matter with the State she added.
In addition to the bus-stand proposal, the Corporation has come up with a proposal to establish a sports stadium at a cost of `14 crore, possibly in an area of 44 acres, to promote indoor and outdoor sports. In order to provide basic infrastructure facilities in the newly annexed areas of the Corporation, yet another proposal has been submitted to the estimation committee, she added.
Commissioner Janaki Raveendran was also present on the occasion.