CHENNAI: The Central railway station and the trains in the region are busting at the seams in this summer's rush.

Crowds on trains, and buses are extremely high during weekends. This is despite the introduction of many special trains by the Southern Railway and additional buses by transport corporations and omni services.

Everyday, hundreds of travellers throng railway stations, and the Koyambedu central bus stand, seeking accommodation. Those who booked their tickets in advance had comfortable journey but last minute passengers undergo a lot of hardship in reaching their destinations.

The Southern Railway itself is operating over 700 special trains this summer to various destinations, including to Nagercoil, Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore, Mangalore, Tuticorin, Ajmer and Jodhpur. Apart from special trains, additional coaches are being attached to major trains when the number of wait-listed candidates exceed 300. Despite this additional accommodation, confirmed berths are not available in major trains during weekends till the end of May.

"We have been operating a maximum number services, still the crowd in unreserved compartments of major trains is unimaginably high," says a senior railway official. Passengers think unreserved compartments in special trains were very few compared to the reserved coaches.

They wanted the administration to run trains with more sitting accommodation for the convenience of passengers.

The state-owned Express Transport Corporation is operating special buses to Madurai, Tiruchi, Kumbakonam, Salem, Hosur and Bangalore every day. An official of the corporation said the rush was heavy during weekends due to which more services were operated. Admitting that they could not match the convenience of omnibuses, he said they could not press into service sophisticated services due to resource crunch. But still the corporation operated well-maintained buses for long-distance routes.

Omnibuses

Private omnibuses have almost become a regular service provider in the State. On an average about 500 buses are operated daily to various destinations in the south.

Fares in omnibuses are at least 60 per cent more than the train or bus fare. For example fare for Tiruchi is Rs. 300 and for Madurai is Rs. 350 as against Rs. 166 and 195 on trains. But still there is heavy demand for seats in these buses.

Omnibus operators, however, justify the `exorbitant' fare. They said that every year the Government was hiking the tax for omnibuses, forcing them to pass on the burden to passengers. As the competition was stiff, they had to provide more and more comforts to passengers, besides maintaining punctuality to woo passengers.

Denying that they were fleecing the passengers, they said regular operators did not indulge in such "unhealthy" practices. The fact that these services had a regular clientele was a proof of their popularity, they said.

One suggestion made by railway authorities to meet the growing demand is doubling the Chennai-Nagercoil BG line with the State part financing the scheme. That would help to increase the train services substantially, which in turn would ease the road traffic.

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