More than Rs 5 crores collected through ticket sales by the state transport corporations
Posted on: 03/Nov/2018 10:20:32 AM
Deepavali is a festival of joy and happiness and the people in the state of Tamil Nadu are eagerly waiting for 6th of November 2018 as deepavali falls on that day. It is known that many people would be going to their native on this day to celebrate deepavali with their parents, relatives friends etc. It is revealed that through the ticket sales, the state owned transport corporations have collected more than Rs 5 crores in just 2 days for the deepavali special buses. As per the official data, more than 122 lakh passengers that included 46,000 passengers from Chennai have got their tickets reserved already and these passengers would be travelling to their natives for deepavali.
In the next 10 days, the government had estimated that around Rs 20 crores worth tickets would be sold because of 20 percent increase in the footfalls. On Friday evening, there was huge rush to board buses from CMBT or Chennai Mofussil bus Terminus. It is known that well in advance Monday was also declared as holiday for the schools, colleges and other government establishments for the sake of deepavali. This has made many people to plan their trip easily to their natives for this special festival.
One important point is 40 percent of seats in the government buses were reserved through special counters and by using inline portals. People who modified their plans to travel in the eleventh hour had found difficulties in getting a bus. Private omni buses took this opportunity and collected high amounts for the tickets. The shocking piece of information is on Friday a non-a/c semi sleeper ticket to Madurai or Coimbatore that usually cost Rs 500 to Rs 600 was sold for more than Rs 1000 per head. Roads in and around Koyambedu and Vandalur were full of traffic and those people at the Urapakkam bus stop faced difficulties as the buses took more than hour and half to pick the passengers waiting at this temporary bus stop at Urapakkam. A passenger at CMBT spoke about how it is ok even if the buses reached late as there are still two more days for the deepavali. He then highlighted that the traffic was so heavy and he reached the bus terminus on time with many difficulties due to traffic.
As per the press release, MTC or Metropolitan Transport Corporation has started to operate additional 250 buses to meet the additional rush in Chennai city. Every bus would make 4 to 6 trips in a day for the sake of passengers. With the transport union workers calling off the proposed strike the uncertainty over the operation of these special buses has ended now. The good piece of news is the government had released festival advance amount of Rs 45 crores and bonus for the employees.
