The temporary bus stand concept implemented for the first time in the city was of immense help to the commuters, besides reducing the traffic congestion during the Deepavali festival days.
The terminal was established on the Jawahar Mill Ground near the three roads junction. The buses proceeding to Erode, Coimbatore, Tiruchi, Madurai, Tirunelveli, Kanyakumari, Thanjavur, Namakkal, Karur, Bhavani, Edappadi, Rasipuram were operated from the new terminal.
The Salem Corporation was initially hesitant in setting up the terminal. However, the Police, State Transport Department and the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) favoured the temporary bus stand concept to reduce the congestion inside the new bus stand and the arterial roads surrounding it.
The works on the construction of flyovers on Bengaluru NH, Omalur main road, Sarada College road have already led to traffic bottlenecks on ordinary days. The heavy traffic flow on the festival days would have further worsened the situation.
According to the TNSTC sources, a large number of buses were operated round-the-clock from the temporary terminal for four days from October 27 – 30. A total of 1,600 regular departures were recorded from the temporary bus stand on each of the four days, apart from about 150 special services. About 7,000 departures were recorded from this temporary arrangement in the four days, the sources said.
The new facility overflowed with buses and the commuters on Friday and Sunday evenings. The crowd of commuters could be seen till late night hours on Sunday. “We operated services till the last passenger moved out”, said a senior TNSTC official.
On Sunday evening, a large number of people who could not board the unreserved compartments in the trains rushed to the temporary terminal which was not far away from the Salem Railway Junction.
The TNSTC's decision to operate special city bus services from new bus stand, old bus stand and Salem Railway Junction had come handy to the people in reaching the Jawahar Mill ground without much difficulty.
A cross-section of the commuters welcomed the temporary bus stand concept and expressed satisfaction with the arrangements made by the authorities. They said that in cities such as Tiruchi, three temporary bus stands are opened during the festival seasons and urged the police, transport department and the corporation authorities to continue this arrangement during the festival seasons in future too.
