Garland trick at K R Puram!

Garland trick at K R Puram!
Parking attendants at K R Puram railway station cover the rate chart with a nice, thick garland and fleece unsuspecting motorists
SAMEER RANJAN BAKSHI


All it takes to cheat hundreds of people is a garland! Wondering how? Just pay a visit to the K R Puram railway station to see for yourself how innovative our vehicle parking attendants can be. By covering the parking fee chart with a large garland, they hoodwink motorists into coughing up amounts that can be four times as much as the official rates.
The garland, of course, is replaced every other day with a fresh, ‘well-filled’ one. While the attendants are supposed to collect Rs 3 as parking charges per twowheeler, they actually collect Rs 10 for an hour. That, when even at the Bangalore City railway station the rates are Rs 3 per two-wheeler and Rs 10 per four-wheeler. Most of the victims of this deception at the K R Puram railway station are train users, mostly techies, from ITBP, Whitefield, K R Puram and Marathalli.
One Bangalore Mirror reader parked his vehicle for half an hour and was charged an e x o r b i -
tant Rs 12.
When he
protested, he was told the contractor’s business was running in a loss. “Why would we subsidise a contractor’s loss?” he wondered. Another commuter, Ravi Annamalai, said, “I use this parking lot every day. The rate chart reads Rs 2 per day, but they have deliberately covered it with a garland. They take Rs 300 from me every month, while the monthly fee should be Rs 60.”
A railway source from KR Puram said,”We are seeing this kind of problem since the past couple of months. New people have been brought here recently. Probably the problem started after the contract for parking was given to a new contractor recently. Last year, there was no such problem.”
Around 35 trains pass through this station everyday. Two Bangalore Mirror reporters who wanted to check out the scam for themselves parked their vehicle at the station for half an hour. When they returned to their vehicle, they were asked to pay Rs 5 — the rate is Rs 3 in other railway stations.
A senior official who didn’t want to be named said, “We conduct surprise inspections at these parking lots, wearing helmets and parking bikes. If they charge unreasonably, we fine them and take them to task. As far as KR Puram railway station is concerned, we have received complaints about a lack of space and traffic problems after the hanging bridge came up. We have asked the state government to take some of our land and give us some land adjacent to the station.”