Ahmedabad:
There is good news for Ahmedabad Janmarg Limited (AJL). It has finally found bidders to manage the pay and park facilities along the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) after four unsuccessful attempts. But the AJL's respite will come as a bad news for commuters, who might have to loosen their purse strings to park their vehicles along the BRTS corridors.
The AJL has identified three busy spots: AEC -- Shivranjani, Shivranjani - Nehrunagar, and space under the flyovers at Shivranjani, Memnagar and AEC. The stretch has a combined parking capacity of around 327 auto rickshaws, 2722 two-wheelers and 210 four-wheelers.
In response to a tender floated by the AJL, around six private firms have shown interest in managing parking stretches along the BRTS corridor.
AJL floated tenders to sell its idea to come up with pay and park facilities along the BRTS only finding success in getting some attention from the private firms on the fifth attempt, after the AJL officials worked hard to find out reasons for previous failures.
"Realising that the tender, which was being published in English, might not be getting attention from regular bidders for parking facility; we published it in Gujarati", said a senior AJL official. AJL officials also made calls to their existing parking contractors to bid for the pay and park facility along the BRTS corridor.
The official also said that the private contractors did not step up to the task of managing these facilities earlier citing reasons of lack of man-power.
The currently floated tenders are only for the three busy stretches mentioned and officials said that they would consider expansion to other stretches if they get a positive response. The final decision would be taken on Monday following the AJL officials' meeting the bidders.
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