CHENNAI: Holding her two children by their arms, a woman gets up from her seat to alight at the approaching bus stop near Mettupalayam market in a crowded 18K (plying between Broadway and Saidapet West) Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) bus. Sympathetic to her plight, a co-passenger requests her to remain seated till the next stop arrives.“Wait! You better stand close to the door since the crew members at the terminus have informed us that they will skip a few stops. This is because the bus is running late,” a senior citizen cautions the mother. In fact, the elderly passenger was proved right as the bus skipped the Central Railway Station and Shanthi Theatre bus stops. These two bus stops have the maximum number of passengers alighting or boarding buses.The driver, perhaps stunned by the old lady’s ranting, however, stopped the bus at Mettupalayam market. The lady got down with her children. This is just one incident in the city. Several more such incidents continue to happen as the issue remains unresolved. A cross section of commuters complain that a few services of the public carrier skip the notified bus stops during rush hours and late evenings.“It’s a perennial problem at the Bhuvaneswari Theatre bus stop in Perumbur,” claims Saravanan, a resident of Choolai. “I have to take two buses to reach my office at Sterling Road. But frequently, the ordinary 29 series route buses skip the stop, leading to hardships to passengers. Commuters get late for office as a result,” he points out.MTC buses are the lifeline for tens and thousands of people residing in Chennai and the suburbs of Kanchipuram and Tiruvallur districts. The State owned Transport Corporation operates 3,180 buses everyday, connecting different parts of these three districts, carrying an average of 213.46 lakh people on a daily basis.A few commuters also complain that these buses halt a few metres away from the actual bus stops. Suresh Kumar, a private-sector employee who boards buses at Nungambakkam, says that some overcrowded buses halt at least 50 metres away from the actual bus stops to ensure that more people don’t enter the bus.Commuters’ woes unlimited:Another passenger alleges that most of the MTC buses invariably skip even important stops after 10.00 pm, forcing people to use other modes of transport. “Despite passengers waving their hands at the approaching buses and signalling them to stop, the crewmembers are least bothered. Imagine the situation of a family waiting at the bus stops against the backdrop of such horrible conditions,” he points out.Why do buses skip stops?Answering to a query in this connection, M Chandran, President, State Transport Employees Union affiliated with the CITU, opines that the construction work for the Metro Rail project crisscrossing the city has eaten up a majority of the roads in Chennai.“This causes traffic jams, increasing the journey time of the MTC buses anywhere between one and two hours, which is the main reason for skipping the stops,” he observes. At the same time, any such violations committed by the crew members cannot be justified, he adds.When contacted, a senior MTC official clarifies that no complaints in this regard have so far been received. Passengers can immediately report any such incident to the grievances cell, he said and assured that quick action will be taken.
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