Weekend lessens crowd at MGR bus stand

People from Madurai & neighboring districts returned to their hometowns a day before Deepavali due to the weekend. Bus stands were crowded but buses were organized & extra buses were arranged to manage the rush. Online reservation helped assess the volume of passengers & fare charged was monitored. Post-festival, private bus operators were monitored. TNSTC planned in advance to make travel seamless.

Hundreds of people arrived at the M.G.R. bus stand at Mattuthavani here on Saturday, the day before Deepavali, to both board and deboard buses to reach their hometowns.  

Many people from Madurai and other neighbouring southern districts like Virudhunagar, Sivaganga, Ramanathapuram and others who have their workplace at Chennai and other tier 1 cities, returned even a day before the festival.  

Many said that since the festival is on Sunday which is the second week of the month helped them reach their places the day before, which was not the case the previous years. They said they were able to plan accordingly in leisure due to weekend.

K. Parthiban, a native of Melur who studies in a private college in Tiruchi, said he was able to board buses to Madurai with no rush as most of the crowd chose either booked buses or trains.

“Even when there was a considerable crowd at bus stands, it was not a tiring one,” he added.  

A couple from Chennai said they were waiting for a bus to go to Ramanathapuram. “Due to my nature of the job, I was not able to plan for the travel beforehand. But, we were able to get a bus from Chennai after waiting for around 20 minutes which was better compared to the previous years,” they added.  

“Though the bus stand was jam-packed, we found buses to board as it was better organised,” they said.