Car rental firm takes over parking space at Metro station, gets notice

BENGALURU: Regular Namma Metro users who drive to Swami Vivekananda (S V) Road station to catch the Metro have complained about a new car rental company which has taken over space in the parking lot of the station.Over the past one month, the cars belonging to the company, which offers vehicles on rent for self-drive, are being parked at the station and has also deputed personnel to ensure that their spots don’t get taken over.

“First of all, there is very less parking available near the station and now we are forced to park in a small section of the area. Metro stations must be reserved for daily commuters and not for companies to use it as their private compound,” said Nachiket B R, who travels to the city from C V Raman Nagar
every day.

This is not the first time when BMRCL has faced this issue. Earlier in 2015, another self-drive car rental company had started using the parking lot of Baiyappanahalli metro station to park their cars. Some cars were even left at the parking lot overnight prompting BMRCL to ban overnight parking at Metro stations. While action was taken in this case, the problem seems to have returned to a different station.
The company, Drivezy, also provides pickup facilities from the S V Road Metro station according to its website. However, BMRCL officials denied giving permission to the company to park their vehicles.

 “The licensee cannot sublease the space to anyone. It is a violation of terms & conditions. We have issued a notice and if the licensee fails to comply with the terms of the notice — to use the space only for parking vehicles of the commuters, we will cancel their license,” said U A Vasanth Rao, Chief Public Relations Officer for BMRCL.E-mails to the company, asking if they had any tie-up with BMRCL or the parking contractor, were not answered.