With the Tamil Nadu government issuing ‘instant e-pass’ to applicants who furnish their Aadhaar or ration card details along with their mobile phone number, there has been a spurt in applications for such permits for inter-district travel.
Consequently, there was unusually heavy traffic on several highways, while major toll plazas witnessed vehicular congestion on Monday.
Hundreds of cars and two-wheelers entered Chennai from other districts after months of lockdown, which left many stranded outside the State capital. Prior to the revision of the e-pass system, permits for inter-district travel were issued only for medical and personal emergencies.
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Greater Chennai Corporation Commissioner G. Prakash said, “From today [August 17] onwards, e-passes for inter-district movement will be auto-generated. It will be a hassle-free system.”
He reiterated that people should apply for the permits only for genuine purposes.
During the past few months, the Greater Chennai Corporation had issued e-passes for 33% of applicants.
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In Chennai, 7,433 e-pass applications were approved on Monday, as against the daily average of around 2,000 permits. As many as 2,040 of the applicants were those who had been stranded elsewhere. On an average, Chennai receives 15,000 applications per day, officials said.
Following the government’s decision to allow the automatic generation of e-passes, the Coimbatore district administration received around 4,000 applications. Until recently, the district administration had approved around 60% of applications citing death, wedding or medical emergency as the reason for travel, with sufficient proof.
In Erode district, a total of 2,950 e-passes were issued on Monday, as against an average of 450 permits issued per day earlier.
Tiruppur district witnessed a nearly five-fold rise in applications, with 3,807 of them approved as of 5 p.m. on Monday. Revenue officials said that till Sunday, 700 to 800 e-passes per day were approved manually under the old system by the Tiruppur district administration.
New categories
Many had applied under the newly-added categories of ‘work-related’ (including property registration) and ‘return of stranded people’.
Similar spikes in applications were seen in districts like Perambalur, Pudukottai, Karur, Tiruvarur and Thanjavur in the delta region.
In Madurai, “on an average, the district administration would receive 3,000 applications, of which around 500 would be approved each day. Today [Monday], there was a definite rise [in applications] and we are still compiling the figure,” an official said.
Madurai Collector T.G. Vinay said the authorities had been strengthening teams around the district borders, anticipating a large number of vehicles. Apart from the Health Department’s mobile swab units, police and revenue officials will also be monitoring the situation, he said.
Chennai witnessed traffic congestion as thousands of people from the southern and western districts of the State made their way to the city.
(With inputs from Coimbatore, Madurai and Tiruchi regions)