CHENNAI: As lakhs of Chennaiites sought to travel out of town for the Deepavali holidays, traffic on city’s roads has slowed to a crawl over the past three days. Koyambedu bus stand, Central, Egmore and Tambaram railway stations were flooded with commuters on Saturday.
All major roads, including EVR Periyar Salai (Poonamallee High Road), Inner Ring Road, Outer Ring Road, Chennai - Tiruchy NH and other arterial roads were choked with vehicles. This had a domino effect, slowing traffic at Poonamallee, Nungambakkam and Guindy due to congestion.
Meanwhile, the State government’s 11,000 special buses for Deepavali proved grossly inadequate as omni bus fares saw a 150 per cent increase over fares the rest of the year. Thousands of commuters who left for home towns on Friday and Saturday were forced to shell out an additional 800 to 1800 per ticket.
The fare for a non-AC bus from Chennai to Madurai is 1,100 to 1,500 per ticket person, against `600 which is the regular fare. Similarly, a sleeper berth in all non-AC omni buses on the same route costs 1,800 to 2,000. Fares on other routes, including Chennai - Bengaluru, Chennai - Coimbatore and Chennai - Tiruchy, are between 1,500 to 1,800. However, passengers travelling to south TN are the worst affected. Fares to Tirunelveli, Kanniyakumari and Thiruchendur are 2,000 to 2,500 a ticket for buses which have only seats.
Though omnibuses have been fleecing the passengers taking advantages of festival rush, commuters say this is the highest fare ever charged in the last decade. “Until October 29, the ticket fares were between 900 and 1,100. But since November 1, the ticket fare has increased. I paid 2,200 for a semi-sleeper bus to Nagercoil on Saturday, as against the regular fare of 900,” said K Ramakrishnan of Eraniel.
Transport officials claim that the State government can book omni buses and buses operated by travel agencies for permit violation, but there was no provision to penalise them for overcharging commuters. “The Union government has to amend the Motor Vehicles Act authorising the State transport department to act against errant omni buses,” said a senior transport official.