On Wednesday, after three days of acute fuel shortage, the city slowly settled back to normal. Roads once again teemed with automobiles. Traffic that had been nightmarish due to serpentine queues outside fuel outlets eased up considerably, and outlets were mostly empty except for a few odd vehicles. However, those at petrol outlets filled their tanks up and also took away some fuel as a back-up, just in case.
M. Kannan, president of the Tamil Nadu Petroleum Dealers Association, said that most petrol bunks in the city received fuel supplies on Wednesday morning. “Of the total 900 bunks in the city, most bunks received supply. We hope there won't be any more problems from now on,” he said.
After fuel outlets started closing down a couple of days ago due to lack of supplies, most two-wheeler users began using public transport to reach their workplaces. S. Sivaramakrishnan of Teynampet, who was among them, was happy when he finally managed to fill petrol and that too without waiting in a long queue, on Wednesday. “I was surprised to see only one motorist at the bunk,” he said.
Many other motorists went a step ahead and filled petrol in cans too. “I had to push my bike back home after my tank ran dry on Monday. I don't want to take any more chances. I will fill the two-litre can with petrol and keep it at home. It will come in handy if there is another crisis,” said S. Saravanan, a resident of Royapuram.
J. Seshasayanam, general secretary of the Tamil Nadu AITUC Auto Drivers Federation said that most autorickshaws had been off the roads for the past couple of days. “Now the situation has started to improve. But we will be off the road until Friday as a sign of protest against the petrol price hike,” he said.
Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) officials acknowledged that in the last two days, more people had used bus services. There was a significant increase in the revenue MTC netted, officials said. Around 53 lakh people use its services every day, but on Monday and Tuesday, MTC transported around 55 lakh passengers. While on a normal day the collection would be around Rs. 2.75 crore, on Tuesday it touched Rs. 3 crore, officials said.
