Shortage of buses to Ooty leaves voters stranded

Coimbatore: Residents of Ooty, who reached the New Bus Stand on Mettupalayam Road on Thursday morning to reach their hometown to exercise their franchise were stranded till noon due to a shortage of buses.
Though the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) arranged more buses, passengers said the hassle would delay their journey as they had to reach Ooty, go to their homes and later to the polling booths to vote.

The bus stand had as many as 500 passengers waiting for Ooty buses around 8.30am. A passenger told TOI that he had been waiting since 5.45am. “Only three buses to Ooty came between 6am to 9am and were filled up quickly, leaving a large number of passengers behind,” he said. “On normal days, at least one direct bus to Ooty would leave from the bus stand every 30minutes.”

A Manikandan, a native of Ooty who stays and works in the city, said that though he reached the bus stand around 6.30am, he couldn’t find a bus till 8.30am. “I managed to get into one after waiting for more than two hours. The officials there told us that about 15 buses had departed to Ooty owing to high demand on Wednesday night, leading to shortage of buses on the election day.”

A TNSTC official, however, said while the regular bus services had been running as per the schedule, the hassle was due to the unanticipated crowd. “As a lot of people had come to the bus stand on Thursday morning to board buses to Ooty to vote, we found it difficult to find enough vehicles. But, we arranged about six buses by noon to ease the rush.”