Coimbatore to get more multi-level car parking facilities.

With increasing problem of finding parking space in the main commercial centres of the city, commercial establishments and hospitals are coming up with multi-level car parking facilities.

According to K. Vinayagam, Managing Director of The Chennai Silks, it has set up an eight-storey parking facility. 'In the space that one car can be parked, now five cars can be parked,' he said. Customers were reluctant to hand over the vehicle for valet parking.

The parking facility was completed in 70 days. It is a fully automatic system and is made of steel.

'We plan to develop such systems in pre-cast material. We have also suggested to the Corporation that we can install one on the Corporation land at Gandhipuram on build-operate-transfer model,' he said.

At Coimbatore Medical College Hospital, its dean Edwin Joe said there is a proposal to set up a multi-level car park facility mainly for the vehicles of the staff.

The proposal is, however, in the preliminary stage. At least 250 cars of the staff are parked on the hospital premises every day and the number will only go up in the coming years, he said.

'We are having more buildings now and such a parking facility is a necessity,' he said.

Corporation Commissioner K. Vijayakarthikeyan said that two places have been identified for the project and the feasibility study has been completed for multi-level parking facilities at Gandhipuram and Town Hall area. The Corporation is expected to invite bids for the projects by the end of this year and it will be a three-stage tender. Regarding private companies evincing interest in setting up such facilities on Corporation land, he said the local body will examine the possibility when such proposals are submitted to it.

THE HINDU