Angered over the discontinuation of a bus service between Gnayiru village, near Cholavaram, and Red Hills, a group of residents from the village seized an MTC bus plying through their locality on Tuesday morning.
According to them, bus route 58A plying between Gnayiru and Broadway was started in 1960. “But it has been running between our village and Red Hills for the past 20 years and the bus route is well known to all of us,” said Durairaj, a resident.
Most of the villagers used this bus to reach hospitals or markets in Red Hills. “The bus service used to start at 5 a.m. and was scheduled to ply every two hours. Schoolchildren also took the bus to reach their school in Red Hills,” he explained.
However, a few days before Deepavali, the bus service was stopped and a new bus with route number 114 started plying between Gnayiru and CMBT. “The number of trips reduced drastically after this due to the distance and villagers were put to hardship,” said K. Satishkumar, a resident of Gnayiru.
Subsequently, some of the villagers met the MTC officials and they claim there was no response.
“Hence, we seized the bus route 57C, another bus service plying through our village, on Tuesday morning,” said Mr. Durairaj.
The MTC officials and police rushed to the village. After discussions with villagers for over two hours, the bus route 58A was restored to its original destination.
