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Chennai metropolitan transport corporation did not get any of the new 515 buses
Posted on: 05/Jul/2018 9:39:27 AM
On Tuesday, 4th of July 2018, new buses were flagged off by chief minister of TN, Mr. E. Palaniswamy is known. The shocking piece of news is Chennai metropolitan transport corporation or MTC did not get any of the new 515 buses that were flagged off by chief minister of Tamil Nadu. On a daily basis this MTC accounts for more than 20% of the 1.6 crore passengers using government buses in TN.
Salem as well as Coimbatore transport corporations received as many as 200 buses out of the total of 515 buses. It is important to mention here that nearly 70 percent of the MTC buses were old and operated beyond their permissible limit of 6 lakh km to 7 lakh km.
These buses have broken seats and window panes, leaky roofs plus other issues like damaged steps etc. The commuters belonging to Chennai have to put up with these above mentioned issues in the MTC buses until the next batch of new buses that would be out later in this 2018.
It is surprising that since the year 2015, the city of Chennai did not get a new bus and less than 400 buses are below 2 years old. Announcements were made by the transport minister, Mr. M.R. Vijayabhaskar regarding addition of new buses to the MTCs fleet of 3500 buses.
Due to the maintenance problems plus non-availability of spare parts or crew members, atleast 500 buses are lying idle now and those buses on the roads are also not maintained well. This was later confirmed by passengers. A regular MTC user spoke about how most of the seats in the MTC buses were broken and how these seats were tied to the nearest poles using ropes. Apart from this the clamps used to hold the glass window together were also broken and this has resulted in the shutting of the windows. He also spoke about how this made travelling in the summer season very uncomfortable. During the rainy season the roof of these buses start leaking and it would be difficult for the passengers inside the buses. More than 2000 buses do not have automatic doors and in those buses fitted with hydraulic doors, poor maintenance had made the doors to be non-functional. This was as per the official data.
A MTC driver shared his thoughts and spoke about how wooden planks were used for non-responsive clutches and brakes. He also highlighted that rivets are used to hold the cracks in the body. The lack of shock absorbing system in the buses could increase the chances of fatalities during the accidents. In 2016-17, MTC buses were involved in as many as 12000 accidents and that was the highest in any state run transport in India.
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