Attipattu residents stranded 5 km away from nearest bus stand

Even in case of an emergency, there is no transport facility like an autorickshaw in the locality. “Earlier, a lone bus, 56T, was operated from Broadway to Attipattu and we had to wait for at least two hours for the bus. But now, they have stopped that too. There was an autorickshaw stand till a few months ago. But auto drivers have stopped coming here because of the heavy vehicle traffic. Even if they are ready to come, they would charge at least Rs 300 from Ajax to Broadway,” said Lakshmi M, a resident of Attipattu for more than 15 years.

Residents said that the most affected are school children. Since there are no schools nearby, they have to go to Tiruvottiyur or Ennore. “My sons are studying at school in Tiruvottiyur. They have to travel by train, get down at Wimco and take a share auto to reach the school on time. Even the local trains are not frequent. So children have to start at 7.30 am to reach the school by 9 am. When there used to be a bus coming to the locality, it used to take 40 minutes for them to reach school,” said Manikandan, another resident of Attipattu.

Speaking to DT Next, a senior MTC official said, “Since the number of passengers started to decrease and the public started to use local trains, we stopped the bus service from Broadway.”