The District Collector K.V. Mohan Kumar has said that the inter-state bus services between Kerala and Tamil Nadu will resume from Saturday.
He said that in the talks he had held with his counterpart at Coimbatore and also with the respective State Transport Corporations it was decided to run the buses on an experimental basis from Saturday morning.
Initially it will be run on convey basis with police protection in both the States given by the respective police Departments.
He told The Hindu here on Friday that he was holding talks with his Coimbatore counter-part for the last two days on the resumption of bus services between Palakkad and Coimbatore and other centres of Tamil Nadu.
Both the State governments wanted to normalize the inter-state bus services that were suspended for the last five days due to the stoning of some buses of the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation, he said.
The Assistant Transport Officer K. Vijayakumar has said that the KSRTC will operate six buses each in a convoy from Palakkad depot to Coimbatore from 5.30 a.m on Saturday. Again another batch of six buses will start from Palakkad for Coimbatore at 6.30 p.m.
He said that depending on the situation more buses will be operated and it is expected to normalize the inter-state bus services in the next two days depending on the mood of the people in Coimbatore side.
He said that the KSRTC wanted the safety of its staff and also the passengers. The Collectors and Superintendents of Police of both Palakkad and Coimbatore districts have assured security to the bus crew as well as the passengers, the ATO said.
Meanwhile the goods vehicles, containers and some private transport vehicles have started coming from Tamil Nadu side to the State through the Walayar inter-state check posts since morning on Friday, said the officials at the Motor Vehicles Department at the check post.
But there were only few goods vehicles and private transport vehicles going from Kerala to Tamil Nadu side, the officials said.