Hundreds of residents had laid siege to a town bus on Wednesday at Kumili, a village near suburb Guduvanchery, after TNSTC (Viluppuram) authorities had reduced the number of trips of the only bus being operated to the village citing poor road conditions. The bus was released only after midnight after officials pacified the villagers.
However, over 60 students besieged the TNSTC office at Tambaram on Thursday night after being stranded for several hours as the bus was not operated as had been promised by the authorities the previous day.
On Wednesday night at around 8 pm the mofussil bus (route number 60 K) reached Kumili from Tambaram, but residents prevented it from leaving the village complaining that the routine trips of the bus, which used to shuttle 12 times a day, had been reduced to only four over the past few weeks.
“Hundreds of villagers and students depend on this bus to reach nearby Guduvanchery or Tambaram. Now, they operate only twice – once in the morning and in the night – putting us in severe hardships,” complained a villager.
The bus was released after five hours, at around 1.30 am, after the police and TNSTC officials gave assurance that it would be operated as per schedule.
However, on Thursday evening around 50 students were stranded at Guduvanchery after the bus failed to turn up in the evening. They went to Tambaram and laid siege to the TNSTC office till late night asking for transport to reach home.
The bus caters to over 20 villages including Karanai Puducherry, Kaattur, Arungal, Mettupalayam and Keerappakkam. Barring Keerappakkam, the other villages do not have any connectivity to nearby towns.