Chennai: Twenty-year-old Garima Sagar, a Gujarati who is new to Chennai, was waiting for hours at the Broadway bus terminus to take a bus back home. Little did she know that the bus that just swept by would have taken her to her home. Neither did she know the language to ask for help, nor was there any public address system.
Many arterial bus terminals including T. Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur, Besant Nagar, Broadway and Tambaram are not equipped with information booths and do not have adequate staff to help.
Prime terminals of South Chennai, Thiruvanmiyur and Besant Nagar, have no such booths and there is none to guide the passengers as well. “Commuters do not know which bus starts at what time and half of the buses in Thiruvanmiyur depot do not function and nobody informs us. We sit in the bus for hours only to be told by a passer-by that it does not go,” said Venugopalan, an activist.
Though T. Nagar and Broadway are equipped with a system to announce the arrival of buses, it is seldom functional. Moreover, the announcements are made in Tamil adding to the woes of people who are new to the city. “Only during morning and late evening, one can hear announcements. Rest of the time, you are clueless about the destination of a bus and its route,” said K. Kiran.
Tambaram and Guindy bus terminals that have dual bus stops adjacent to one another cater to thousands of commuters daily but do not have a system to notify passengers about buses. Initially there was a booth near the bus stop, which was broken to construct footpaths, commuters said. Officials have so far turned a deaf ear to the woes.
“We do not have enough personnel. Only drivers and conductors announce when they get time. Information will be passed on to authorities in the consumer meeting. If not new booths, the current booths will function properly and we will work towards introducing English announcements,” Metropolitan Transport Corporation’s public relations officer told DC.
