Kumari Palany & Co

NO social distancing in the buses in TN due to overcrowding

Posted on: 04/Jun/2020 10:39:05 AM
The social distancing has gone for a toss now!!

On Wednesday, many buses in the state of TN remained overcrowded despite the government assuring that the frequency of the buses would be increased based on the demand. On Tuesday, the state of TN witnessed the first ever case of bus drives affected with Corona virus infection and it grabbed many eyeballs.

Point is as many as 140 passengers traveled in the bus route Tiruvannamalai to Cuddalore and the bus was driven by this Corona virus infected driver.

 There were some small protests from the passengers due to less number of buses and this happened in places like Bodi belonging to Theni district and Pollachi of Coimbatore district. The long wait by the passengers at the bus stands led to the minor protests.

 It was later confirmed by some sources that there were just 30 percent buses on the roads instead of 50 percent as assured by the government of TN. Truth is the conductors had very tough time in stopping excess passengers from boarding the buses.

It was brought to light by a conductor of TNSTC that instructions were given to drop and pick up passengers at the intermediate bus stops. He added that the passengers would not listen to the conductor if they had been waiting for long time. He concluded that more passengers were allowed to board the bus inspite of the Corona virus risk.  

As per Mr. Arumugam Nainar of CITU affiliated state transport union, on Wednesday there were more people than anticipated as the day was an auspicious one. He explained that the local authorities did not respond appropriately. 

It must be taken into note that more shops and factories have resumed their operations now and so more number of people would be going to the workplaces. Therefore, it is important not to hold back 50 % of bus fleet.

It has been revealed by an official belonging to the state transport that managing directors of all transport corporations and branch managers were issued powers to operate more buses to avoid overcrowding. He assured that this issue would not be there from Thursday onwards.