R. Ravi, who was travelling from Chennai Central to Mumbai recently, had forgotten to pack his child’s asthma medication. When he went to the station’s pharmacy, he was surprised to see it shut. Finally, he had to take an autorickshaw to try and find a medical shop in the vicinity.
The shutting down of the facility has put thousands of passengers to inconvenience. This is the case not only with the station, but many other transport hubs in the city, whether it is the airport or the Chennai Mofussil Bus Terminus (CMBT) in Koyambedu.
“At the airport, although there is a pharmacy located before the security gate, there is no way to buy medicines once you have crossed security.
Also, the store located in the airport does not have a lot of commonly-used medicines,” G. Sasindran, a frequent traveller, said.
For people taking a bus out of town from CMBT, buying medicines is even tougher. Vinod Babu, a resident of Tiruchi, takes a bus back home every week. “I have to ensure that I buy my hypertension medicines well ahead of time because if I forget, it is tough to find a drug store open at night,” he said.
While it is possible to get emergency medical care, the government needs to realise the importance of a dispensary, especially for essentials like diapers and essential medicines, he added
The solution to traffic logjams
The sheer number of vehicles in Chennai has rendered the traffic situation in the city a nightmare. But, motorists having smartphones have a better chance of reaching their destination quicker with the help of dedicated traffic updates and alerts.
However, unlike Bengaluru, where such alerts are provided by the Bengaluru Traffic Police or private traffic aggregators, Chennai had no such facility until the arrival of Traffline, a mobile application providing exclusive traffic updates and alerts on traffic jams along with alternative routes.
Traffline that was launched in 2010 has a presence in eight cities including Mumbai, New Delhi, Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
Somanath Nath, manager, business development, Traffline, said the company is one the few traffic aggregator companies launched in India through private funding. Talking about the mechanism involved in providing real-time data, he said the data fed by various fleet operators, crowd sourcing and the traffic police department, is then crunched with an algorithm and then cross-checked by volunteers before the updates and alerts are released. Traffline’s app also offers information on parking facilities, both paid and free, for Chennai and other cities.
The company provides traffic updates and alerts through social media platforms and its application which has been downloaded more than one million times, with a rating of 4.2 on Google Play Store, he added.
