TIRUPPUR: Private vans made a killing charging three times the ticket fare in government buses as thousands of workers headed home, especially in delta districts, from Tiruppur on Tuesday night. According to sources, the knitwear sector employs around 8 lakh people, including 3 lakh from outside the state.
Most of the knitwear companies in Tiruppur disbursed bonus to workers on Tuesday morning, following which they left for their home towns to celebrate Deepavali. As a result, serpentine queues were seen in front of the new bus stand on Tuesday night.
As time passed, the crowd swelled as TNSTC buses did not arrive on time. People had to stand in queue for more than one hour in the new bus stand to board a government bus to delta districts. Buses to southern districts were operated from Kovilvazhi bus stand.
Taking advantage of the situation, several tourist vehicles arrived near the bus stands and offered to take the workers to their destinations for a higher price. For example, the ticket fare on a TNSTC bus to Tiruchy was Rs 180, but the vans charge up to Rs 500 per passenger. A similar situation prevailed at the Kovilvazhi bus stand.
Even though they charged three times more than the bus fare, many people boarded them in desperation to reach home early.
On Wednesday too, passengers were seen waiting for buses in the new bus stand for about half an hour. M Ilayaraja, of Thanjavur, said, “It was crowded on Tuesday night so I planned to go to my native on Wednesday morning. But the buses are late. Due to this, there is a rush among passengers to get seats in buses.”
Speaking to TNIE, V Sivakumar, general manager of TNSTC Tiruppur, said, “On Tuesday, we operated 400 buses to other districts. We had all the arrangements ready. Police and our officials did the work of regularising the passengers. However, there was a slight delay in the departure of passengers. We sent all passengers on buses by 1 am on Wednesday. We have kept 400 buses ready on Wednesday as well.”
“Private vehicles tried to enter bus stands to pick up passengers but we did not allow them. They may have picked up passengers from outside the bus stand,” he added.
K Anand, RTO of Tiruppur South (In charge of Tiruppur North), said, “No complaints have been received regarding private vehicles charging extra. If there are any complaints we will take action.”
On Wednesday, workers from other states thronged the Tiruppur railway station. The commercial streets and main roads in the city were also swamped by shoppers.
