Chennai: Hundreds of passengers, both reserved and unreserved, complained of a lack of buses from Kilambakkam to various destinations on Wednesday night, even though the State Transport Department had announced special services to handle the Bakrid and long weekend rush.A group of passengers surrounded Transport Minister A Vijay Tamilan Parthiban when he visited the Kilambakkam bus terminus to review the arrangements and argued with him, saying that buses were not available even for those who had reserved their seats.Passengers who had not booked seats but reached Kilambakkam complained that they were not allowed to board buses. “Unless one makes a prior reservations, they can’t travel by bus. That’s how the situation has become,” said P Raman, a passenger bound for Kallakurichi.State Express Transport Corporation managing director R Mohan said there was no shortage of buses. “Some buses returning to Kilambakkam from the districts were stuck in traffic en route. This caused delays on certain routes. But we operated additional buses to make up for the delay,” he said.At least 1.65 lakh passengers travelled from Koyambedu, Kilambakkam and Madhavaram bus termini on Wednesday. This, he said, was much lower than the rush during major festivals such as Deepavali and Pongal. “On Thursday, operations were smooth without any delay,” he added.The transport dept had on Monday announced that a total of 475 special buses would be operated on Tuesday, and 845 buses would run on Wednesday, apart in addition to the existing services.The MD said elaborate arrangements had been made for passengers returning to Chennai on Sunday from various districts and neighbouring States, as well as for devotees travelling to Tiruvannamalai on Saturday for Girivalam.
