Bus rate hike a dampener for R Day plans

Also severely affected are students and youngsters from various colleges who had plans for the upcoming long Republic Day weekend to visit their families in different cities, or plan a group outing nearby.

With the SETC rates now almost rivalling those proposed by private travels, many have been forced to compromise on their weekend plans (January 26 to 28). 

Thiru Murthy, a first-year student at a government college in the city said that he had planned to invite a few of his friends to visit his native Tiruchy for a family occasion during the three-day break, but has now cancelled his plans after the ticket rates for all of them saw a hike of over 50 per cent. 

“Our parents struggle to make ends meet, and we plan such trips with so much detail and save money with a lot of patience. Now my friends can’t afford to come, and even I had to borrow some cash from my father,” he rued.

Another set of youngsters who work for an NGO in Coimbatore had planned a weekend trip from Chennai to Bengaluru with the kids from an orphanage. Unfortunately, a slight delay in booking the tickets now has led to the entire initiative being cancelled.

“The children were so excited about the plan and we had collected the money from a fund-raiser meticulously. But the news broke a day before we were to finalise the tickets, and now a single tickets stand at nearly Rs 550! As we were planning to transport almost 30 kids, the overall charge worked up to be too much for us to handle. The hike could at least have been implemented after some notice” said Ramesh Manickam, who works at a BPO service in the city.

Not just the wards – their parents are also suffering. B Sridhar, a marketing professional from Coimbatore had wanted to visit his son in Chennai who studies at a private college. “Now, I see that the rates match that of a private bus. My faith in the government has completely gone. One of the main reasons people choose a bus journey over trains is the economics involved – now it is the trains which are cheaper.”