Traffic chokes in Perungalathur as people return to Chennai after Deepavali holidays

CHENNAI: The people who went to their native to celebrate Diwali with their friends and families started to return to Chennai from Monday midnight. Following that the traffic was heavily affected on the National Highway from midnight.

Though extra counters were placed in the Paranur and Acharapakkam Toll booths the situation couldn't be controlled. On Tuesday early morning hundreds of private and government buses arrived in Perungalathur one after another adding to the traffic choas.

The commuters who got down at Perungalathur bus stop had to face a hard time since the people who needed to travel to Tambaram and Chromepet could not find the MTC buses at that time and using the opportunity the auto drivers fleeced the public charging triple the fare. Even the share auto drivers charged Rs 50 per passenger to drop them off in Tambaram from Perungalathur and Rs 150 to Chromepet. The commuters claimed that they couldn't even board the EMU since the train was overflowing already.

Naveen from Tambaram said, " Since it was raining we had no other option than to pay the amount demanded by the auto drivers. The traffic was also choked and it took more than one hour to reach Tambaram from Perungalathur in the early morning. The commuters claimed that the transport department should have operated more MTC buses in the morning so that passengers coming from districts would had easily reached the interior parts of greater Chennai."