To cater to the rush of passengers going to their hometowns for the Deepavali festival, the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporations (TNSTC), State Express Transport Corporation (SETC) have arranged for special buses from Chennai and other major cities in the state for which the advance bookings start on Wednesday.
Close to 20,567 special buses will be operated on November 3,4,5 across the state. This includes 11,367 buses which will ply from Chennai. Similarly, 11,842 special buses (including 4,207 to Chennai) will be operated from November 7 to 10.
Advance bookings for these buses can be done at the special counters from October 31 to November 5. A total of 30 centres (26 at Koyambedu, 2 at Tambaram Sanatorium, 1 each at Poonamallee, Madhavaram) have been designated in Chennai for the advance bookings.
Services from Chennai on November 3,4,5 will operate from six termini namely CMBT, MMBT, Poonamallee bus stand, Tambaram Sanatorium bus stand, Tambaram railway station bus stand and KK Nagar bus depot.
CMBT: Buses to Velankanni, Tiruchirappalli, Madurai, Tirunelveli, Sengottai, Thiruvananthapuram, Panruti, Villupuram, Salem, Coimbatore, Ernakulam and Bengaluru
MMBT: Buses from Chennai to Andhra Pradesh and all APSRTC buses
Poonamallee bus stand: Buses to Kancheepuram, Arcot, Arani, Vellore, Dharmapuri, Tirupattur and Hosur
Tambaram Sanatorium bus stand: Buses from Chennai, via Tindivanam, to Kumbakonam, Thanjavur and beyond.
Tambaram Railway station bus stand: Buses to Tiruvannamalai KK Nagar bus depot: Buses going through East Coast Road (ECR) to Puducherry, Cuddalore and Chidambaram.
To avoid traffic congestion, the buses will halt at the following places and then sent inside the city. Since the buses entering city on the three days will carry very less number of passengers, they will be stopped at the following places outside Chennai. All passengers will be accommodated in other buses coming to the city so as to reduce the number of vehicles.
Government buses (Koyambedu): The places are Vandalur overbridge, Irumbuliyur, Maduravoyal, Toll Plaza, Karthikeyan Nagar, MGR University, Nerkundram, Poonamallee Bypass, Maduravoyal flyover, Vanagaram, Jesus calls office, Koyambedu flyover, Koyambedu Malar commercial office, Koyambedu police station.
(with inputs from ENS)