Commuters hit as 360 buses cancelled in Chennai

Chennai: Your wait to catch a bus would be longer, as the State Transport Corporation (STC) has cancelled around 3,200 buses from all over the state recently.

The quiet move, which accounts for the cancellation of more than 360 buses in Chennai, will hit loyal commuters of the public transportation really hard.

According to the informed sources in the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC), the move was taken to handle the extreme financial crunch faced by the department.

"After taking an account of the uneconomical routes, MTC has cancelled 360 buses of the 3,500 ones plying in the city. Most of the services to the suburban localities were cut down," said K. Natarajan, Treasurer, Labour Progressive Federation.

MTC offers a minimum of six to the maximum of 26 services to the localities, depending on the patronage. Buses like 27D (Foreshore estate to Villivakkam) and 23C (Besant Nagar to Ayanavaram) have 26 and 28 services respectively.

"Frequency of the buses from Tambaram to Guduvanchery has drastically declined during nights. I wait for more than 20 minutes to find a bus in this route," said K. Ravi, a commuter.

The reasons for this move are plenty. While MTC authorities attribute it to the financial crunch owing to the emergence of government welfare schemes and rise in private transportation options, the labourer union members blame it on lack of prompt operations.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, an MTC official said, "In the recent past, government had come up with free bus pass scheme to almost all the sectors. As collecting the subsidy amount from the concerned department is a time-consuming procedure, there has been a lot of pending bills. We are in a huge financial crunch now."

Should the pricing be improved to raise the funds? No, says the Labour union as they state that it would see a massive shift of people to private modes of transportation. "According to the statistics available with Indian Road Transport, Chennai has lost over five lakh passengers from 2011 to 2017. Patronage can be increased if the bus timings are scheduled, the move that would attract the office-goers," said K. Natarajan.

50 AC buses scrapped

Summer is going to be worse for the bus commuters, as the MTC has scrapped 50 air-conditioned buses in the city. Buses to Kelambakkam, Kancheepuram and Mamallapuram are among the ones that were taken off the city Roads.

Spokesperson of MTC told this paper that the buses that were out of the working condition were cancelled. "Most of the buses are above seven years old. The department is short of funds to maintain them," the spokesperson admitted.
 "Major bus routes, including 21H (Broadway to Kelambakkam) and 593 (Broadway to Thandalam) would no more serve Chennaites," said an official.
However, buses to a few high yielding routes, including the IT corridor, Old Mahabalipuram Road has been spared.

No roadmap to 100 small buses plan

While the long pending plan of adding 100 small buses to the Chennai Metropolis remains in the papers, the government, in the recent budget, has announced to replace 2,000 old buses with the new ones.

The driver fraternity has been up in arms against the government for running the rickety old buses. A driver at the KK Nagar bus depot complains that the vehicles are unfit for driving. "Every part of the vehicle is faulty. Rather than replacing the vehicle, the corporation believes in repairing them, which is just a temporary solution," said the driver.

Even the driver seats are often broken and unfit to use, particularly for such long-duration work at the wheel, 12 trips a day, through heat and dust, besides an annoying traffic. Just imagine my fate when I have to spend those painful hours in a painful seat," said another driver at Tambaram bus terminus.
 It would take years to bring the new buses. Till then, we have to suffer in silence," he added.