Traffic chokes highways to cities, and e-governance agency website too

Unlike the recent months when the only a fraction of people were crossing the district borders due to lockdown restrictions, there were a large number of vehicles at Sriperumbudur and Paranur toll plazas, the two entry points into Chennai, right from the morning. The motorists heading to Chennai said they did not see any police personnel at the check posts, adding that they crossed them with ease.

The scenes were similar at Coimbatore as well, as workers from the southern districts returned to the city for work. The textile units in Tirupur, too, recorded a large number of labourers returning to work on Monday.

Meanwhile, those who tried to apply for e-pass on Monday were dismayed as the Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (TNeGA) website was not opening. Due to this, most of them could not apply till 1 pm.

TNeGA sources said some of the features on the website did not work because of the heavy traffic in the website. After the traffic reduced after 2 pm, passes were issued immediately. TNeGA Commissioner Santhosh K Misra was not available for comment.

Ever since lockdown began, the government imposed restrictions on the movement of public, mandating e-pass to allow any person to travel. However, after complaints, a committee was appointed to look into the issue. Based on its recommendation, it was decided to issue e-pass to any applicant who submitted Aadhaar or ration card along with contact numbers.

With the government relaxing the norms for e-passes for travel within the State, the Greater Chennai Corporation has requested people to use the facility for genuine purposes only.

“From Monday, e-passes within the State are auto-generated and it is a hassle-free system. As the economy is carefully opened up, this will be a great comfort to citizens,” Chennai Corporation Commissioner G Prakash said.

He also advised the citizens to make use of this facility only for genuine purposes and urged the public to stand together against COVID-19.

Meanwhile, a Chennai Corporation press release said that it has made arrangements for e-paper facility for the patients staying in the COVID care centres.

“We are providing the digital newspaper facility along with Magzter. The facility has been given in eight COVID care centres, including IIT-Madras, Nandambakkam Trade Center and others,” the release said.

Patients in COVID care centres could visit the Magzter website and read more than 5,000 newspapers in digital format at free of cost. “The website has newspapers on more than 40 topics including sports, technology and travel,” the release added.

Following the relaxation of the e-pass procedure, the Chengalpattu Paranur toll plaza was congested with vehicles on Monday.

For the last four months, a strict e-pass system has been in place to control people from travelling to other districts and spreading the virus. As the spread has come down the recent weeks and several complaints from the public about their request for e-passes being rejected, the government has now revised the guidelines. A few days ago Chief Minister Edappadi Palanisamy announced that e-pass will be approved immediately to everyone, starting from Monday.

Due to the procedure’s ease now, the Paranur toll plaza, which is known as the gateway to Chennai, was jammed with vehicles from early morning itself.

The public said that the police did not conduct checks by intercepting the vehicles like before and they allowed all vehicles to pass through. The Toll plaza in Sriperumbudur in Kancheepuram district also witnessed an increase in entry and exit of the vehicles on Monday.

Meanwhile, the arrival and departure of the passengers in the Chennai airport increased also increased. Airport sources said that nearly 7,500 passengers used the Chennai airport on Monday, while the usual number is around 5,000.