COIMBATORE: Passengers, including college students, from Coimbatore staged a road-roko in front of Sulur bus stand on Friday night alleging that the TNSTC has not allocated adequate buses ahead of Pongal.As part of reducing traffic congestion on Singanallur bus stand, TNSTC authorities have set up a temporary bus stand at Sulur and announced that buses to Tiruchy, Tanjore, Kumbakonam, Madurai, Pattukottai and Nagapattinam will be operated from Sulur bus stand instead of Singanallur.
However, on Friday, commuters found that the number of buses were very low in comparison with the number of passengers, due to which the all people couldn’t board the bus.Though the passengers complained about this to the TNSTC staff present in the bus stand, they didn’t get any proper response. So, the people staged a road-roko condemning the TNSTC officials on Friday.
Traffic was disrupted on the Trichy Road and Coimbatore Road due to the protest, following which police diverted the traffic to Coimbatore via Karanampettai and Tiruchy route via Pappampatti, Selakarachal and Palladam.The passengers called off the protest after three hours when TNSTC officials assured them that more buses will be allocated from Sulur.
When contacted, a senior TNSTC official said that enough buses are being operated from Sulur. “The reason a few passengers had staged the protest was because they were denied tickets to Tiruchy in buses going to Madurai. They were denied tickets, as Madurai-bound buses don’t go through Tiruchy. We have operated over 150 buses to Tiruchy and Tanjore from Sulur bus stand, apart from buses to Madurai from Singanallur bus stand from Friday afternoon to 12 am on Saturday. The special buses will be operated till Sunday.”
Meanwhile, during the protest, 15 mobile phones were stolen from commuters who were in the bus stop.
Similarly, a female passenger along with her two daughters lost her money and lodged a complaint, following which a motor vehicle inspector handed over Rs 1,000 to the woman for buying tickets.