The city is all set to have more than 100 auto-rickshaw stands as the engineering department of the Chandigarh municipal corporation has earmarked the locations and allotted all the work.
Of these stands, 12 are being built based on the drawings, while the work on the remaining ones started on the ground after allotment through a tender process.
As per the estimate of the civic body, all these planned auto-rickshaw stands would come up at a cost of around INR 1.15 crore.
Since the building and road (B&R) wing of the MC’s engineering department has three sub-divisions and the stands’ construction work has been distributed among them, the amount to be disbursed for the purpose has also been estimated accordingly. “First sub-division of the B&R wing has been carrying out the maximum work to build around 56 auto-rickshaw stands, followed by the second sub-division, which is getting about 32 stands ready. The third sub-division is working on 18 stands. Since all tenders in this regard have been allotted, the auto-rickshaw stands are expected to be ready by the end of the month,” officials aware of the development said. The designs to construct the three-wheeler stands have been issued to the civic body by the urban planning department of the UT administration.
“There are some issues at a few sites, like in Sector-22 market, where people want to shift the stand to some other place. The shifting will be done by the urban planning department only, as the MC is bound to follow their drawings to construct the auto-rickshaw stands,” the officials said.
These stands are being built following the orders of the UT administration to provide a dedicated space for them.
Currently, Chandigarh has registered auto-rickshaws, which ply on the city roads, and several more also come in from neighbouring Mohali and Panchkula.
During the district road safety committee’s meeting in February, Chandigarh had asked the chief architect office to designate parking space for three-wheelers for smooth movement of traffic and better management of pick-up and drop facilities by operators.
