2.66L travelled using transport corpn buses: Minister Sivasankar

CHENNAI: Transport Minister SS Sivasankar said that 2.66 lakh passengers travelled on 5,134 buses operated by the transport corporations from Chennai till Friday 7 pm.

"For the convenience of the passengers travelling to their hometowns for the Pongal festival, we are operating special buses in addition to the daily normal service of 2,100 buses. On Thursday, 2,686 buses, including 586 special buses, were operated from the city and 1.34 lakh passengers travelled on it. On Friday, till 7 pm, 2,759 buses were operated with 1.32 lakh passengers travelling on it," he told reporters after inspecting the operation of the special bus service at CMBT.

The Minister said that for the benefit of the passengers, State Express Transport Corporation (SETC) is sharing a link with the passenger to track the real-time location of buses using the Chennai Bus App. "Chennai Bus App which is used to track the MTC bus services allows the users to track the SETC buses as well. The passengers should make use of the application for hassle-free travel," he said.

After the appeal made to the public to make use of the transport corporation buses, he said that number of buses reserved by the passengers has gone up from 650 buses during Deepavali to 948 buses during Pongal.

"Passengers making use of the transport corporation buses in a way help overcome the issue of omnibuses charging high fares," he said, adding that during the Christmas-New Year period, 95 omnibuses were inspected and nine buses were fined for various reasons including excess fares.

On the passengers' complaints of high fares collected by omnibuses, Sivasankar said that after the omnibuses themselves fixed fares, there was no issue over it.

For Kaanum Pongal, he said that MTC would operate 455 special buses to Vandalur, Anna Square, Kovalam, Mahabalipuram, Besant Nagar and Queen's Land.