Hundreds of people throng bus stands on last day of festival holidays

Passengers face bus shortage at Arappalayam and Mattuthavani bus stands after long weekend, causing travel chaos.

People thronged the bus stands at Arappalayam and Mattuthavani to board buses to their workplaces on the last day of four-day holidays on Sunday. 

While many people, to avoid getting struck at the bus stands, planned their journey on Saturday, the remaining ones struggled to find buses to cities like Coimbatore, Chennai and Bengaluru at the M.G.R bus stand. 

Though special buses were said to be arranged by Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation, passengers still found it difficult to board buses on the busy day.

To avoid such circumstances, people who had planned earlier booked their tickets either in State Express Transport Corporation (SETC) or omni buses beforehand. 

As all buses were already booked, left-out people managed to board buses in the afternoon, but as time went by, it got hard enough to even find a bus in the evening.  

The TNSTC officials said that to manage the crowd, a few mofussil buses were also arranged at the last minute for trips to Chennai.  

Passengers who were waiting in the evening for buses said they were worried about their travel as they had to report to work on Monday.