CHENNAI: Plea to resume S3 buses along the Chrompet-Madambakkam route is growing louder. The service was stopped three years ago. Several requests to the MTC to restart the service has not yielded any result. “A total of three small buses (S3) were allotted for Chromepet-Madambakkam route. It would ply every 20 minutes,” said Dayanand Krishnan, a regular commuter.
He added that MTC reduced it to two and in October 2018, once the cut and cover drain works commenced at Chitlapakkam, the service was completely stopped. “The reason cited was poor patronage. However, public opinion was never sought,” he said.
In 2020, Pradeep Karthik Residents Association in Chitlapakkam, filed a petition with the CM Cell. They too received the same reply saying it was rejected due to poor patronage. “I personally know a lot of people who depended on the bus.
Though frequency of the bus was good, it was always crowded during peak hours. This in itself shows that the patronage was good,” said V Gopal of Chrompet. When contacted, an official also cited that the service was stopped due to poor patronage and that they will look into the issue.