Advocate General (A-G) P.S. Raman on Wednesday informed the Madras High Court that private buses plying between Chennai and the southern districts could be temporarily allowed to pick up and drop passengers off at Porur and Surapet, and drop them off at Perungalathur until they shift their operations completely to the Kalaignar Centenary Bus Terminus (KCBT) at Kilambakkam near Vandalur.
The submission was made before Justice R.N. Manjula who was seized of a batch of writ petitions filed by private bus operators complaining about the Transport Commissioner’s insistence that all south-bound buses be operated only from KCBT and not from the Combined Mofussil Bus Terminus (CMBT) at Koyambedu, as it had been happening for the last two decades.
Pursuant to the filing of the case, the judge had directed the bus operators and government authorities last week to hold talks to arrive at an amicable solution. When she sought to know the outcome of the talks, Senior Counsel Vijay Narayan, representing a couple of petitioners, said that the talks were held on February 3, but the result was not in favour of the bus operators.
The judge was informed that the government officials were not in favour of permitting private bus operators to drop and pick up passengers within Chennai city limits. The A-G said that allowing them to do so would defeat the very purpose of KCBT and the efforts being taken to decongest the traffic in the city limits.
He said that there would be no restriction on plying the private buses, without passengers, to their garages in the city limits until the bus operators establish their garages close to Kilambakkam. Further, as a temporary relief, they could be allowed to pick up and drop passengers at Porur and Surapet, and only drop them off at Perungalathur for a month or two, he added.
The judge directed the A-G to submit by Friday a map with the exact locations of the pick up and drop points. She also asked Mr. Narayan to submit a map from his side too, highlighting the exact distance of those points from the KCBT.
Earlier, the A-G told the court that KCBT had already become operational, and that, as many as 40,000 passengers had been using it. In reply, Mr. Narayan said that the passengers had no choice, and were being forced to spend huge amount of money to travel to Kilambakkam. “If tomorrow, the government opens an airport at Parandur and says all flights will become operational from there, passengers will be left with no choice but to go there. This is like that. The number of passengers is no indication of it being convenient,” he added.
Also replying to the A-G’s contention that the private bus operators had not approached the court during the last few years when the KCBT was under construction, the Senior Counsel said that the bus operators were of the impression that KCBT would be functional, in addition to CMBT. They never thought that the government would completely prevent south-bound buses from accessing CMBT, he said.
