CHENNAI: Flouting Covid-19 SOPs, many government buses operated with more than the prescribed number of passengers on Thursday. Koyambedu CMBT witnessed a huge rush due to the three-day holiday weekend. The transport officials claimed that commuters could not be restricted from occupying beyond the mandated 50 per cent seats owing to the huge demand.
After over two months of lockdown, bus services resumed on June 27. After resumption, CMBT received an average footfall of 35,000 to 40,000 passengers a day during weekdays and 75,000 to 80,000 during weekends, which jumped to 1.32 lakh on Thursday.
The SETC operates services for long-distance routes and Coimbatore, Salem, Madurai, Salem, Kumbakonam and Villupuram Divisions of TNSTC run mofussil services between districts.
Transport Minister R S Raja Kannappan said 1,00,815 commuters travelled in 1,834 regular services operated from CMBT. “To meet the additional demand, 576 special buses operated with 31,680 commuters.”
Kannappan said the department carried out a detailed study on route-wise commuters patronage. “We are introducing buses wherever necessary. All buses that were operated before lockdown resumed, except those to Kerala.”
According to official data, until March last year, the CMBT handled over two lakh commuters a day during weekends. The figure goes up to five lakh during festival seasons like Deepavali and Pongal.
Sudden increase
After resumption of bus services, CMBT received an average footfall of 35,000 to 40,000 passengers a day during weekdays and 75,000 to 80,000 during weekends. This rose to 1.32L on Thursday