With Tamil Nadu’s harvest festival Pongal around the corner, people have started to travel to their hometowns. As on Saturday morning, around 1.65 lakh people have travelled to their hometowns from Chennai for Pongal holidays, reported Dinakaran.

According to a news report, the Tamil Nadu government has made elaborate arrangements to cope with the rush of passengers travelling for Pongal. The Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) announced that it will operate an additional 14,263 services apart from its regular services to help clear the Pongal rush. Apart from special bus services, the TNSTC has also streamlined boarding points to avoid traffic snarls and crowding of people in the city. Boarding points have been put in place in Madhavaram, Tambaram railway station, Tambaram new bus stand, Poonamallee, Koyambedu CMBT and KK Nagar for buses going to various parts of South India. To help people reach these boarding points, the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) has also arranged 250 feeder services from different parts of Chennai to these points. These feeder services will ply round-the-clock till January 15.

Special checks on omnibuses

In order to keep a check on long-distance buses operated by private travel agencies from taking advantage of the festival season and overcharging passengers, the Tamil Nadu government has formed 50 teams to conduct surprise checks on omnibuses across the state. Speaking to Dinakaran, Traffic Commissioner Samayamoorthi said that these teams will be conducting checks on omnibuses for overcharging, operating without license etc., and will recommend necessary action on erring operators.

He added that as of Saturday, four omnibuses have been caught for charging more than the normal fare, and that the general public can complain about overcharging omnibuses on the toll free number 18004256151.