Hasten plans for termini near city, demand truckers

Once completed, these facilities would help ease the pressure of traffic and pollution in the city, while also offering a respite to truckers who are now forced to struggle to find space to park their vehicles. 

Stating that truck termini have been planned at Karunakaracherry near Vandalur Outer Ring Road and Madhavaram, a senior CMDA official said on condition of anonymity: “Our focus is to improve the city infrastructure in terms of all aspects. We have been receiving requests from owners of container lorries for allotting space to set up truck termini.” 

This would help transport firms and the drivers, who have been raising the demand for long. However, according to truck owners, the government has been giving assurances on the matter for a long time, but has failed to implement it thus far. Members of various container lorry organisations have been urging the CMDA to allot space for parking yard at places like Madhavaram and Karunakaracherry near Vandalur ORR. 

Even though officials from the CMDA had already conducted meeting with the association representatives, no concrete decision has been taken until now. 

V G Jayakumar, committee member, All India Motors Transport Congress, said that the city is receiving 3,000 to 3,500 containers per day from neighbouring states. But the container drivers are forced to stop their vehicles at unauthorised places before reaching the scheduled spots. 

“The CMDA officials have already earmarked a couple of places, but failed to follow up and take up works,” he said, and demanded that there should be a separate committee to look into the parking facilities for containers in and around city. 

Pointing out how the Chennai Port would be able to attract more number of trucks, container lorries and other big transportation vehicles if there were sufficient parking facilities provided, Tamil Nadu Lorry Owners Federation president S Yuvaraj noted that parking termini were provided at other cities like Mumbai and Hyderabad.

“Considering this, the government should give priority to parking space for containers,” he demanded.