The joy and happiness on the faces of those passengers who returned back to Chennai from their hometowns in TN after celebrating Miladi Nabi and Gandhi Jayanthi were short-lived.
Point is that the omnibuses are demanding huge amounts (twice or thrice than normal fares) as bus fares. This has shocked the passengers and they are totally unhappy.
It must be noted that the omni buses have been charging Rs 3500 per person for travelling to Chennai from Madurai. In the same way, Rs 3000 per person has been charged from Trichy to Chennai and Rs 4000 from Coimbatore. Normally, the bus fares would be Rs 1500 to Rs 2500 in a/c sleeper.
It was mentioned by a resident of Madurai working in Chennai that he spent Rs 3200 for a/c sleeper ticket in the omnibus. He spoke about how normally he would go to his home town by train and the non-availability of train tickets have made him choose omnibus to reach Chennai on Monday itself leaving his family in his hometown.
Even in the past during the long weekends and festival holidays etc, many times the omni bus operators have hogged the limelight for collecting huge amounts for bus ticket fares.
For steeply increasing the bus ticket fares, the TN govt must take action on the omni bus operators. This was according to a traveller from Chennai to Thoothukudi. According to Mr. A. Anbalagan, president of All Omni Bus Owners Association it was clear that some of the operators were charged excessively on Sunday.