After five months, CMBT to reopen on Monday

CHENNAI: The Chennai Moffusil Bus Terminus (CMBT) at Koyambedu will reopen after five months on Monday as the state government has permitted inter-district bus services from September 7. However, the Madhavaram Moffusil Bus Terminus (MMBT), a facility for Andhra Pradesh and Tiruvallur-bound fleet, is unlikely to be opened for passenger services.
Ahead of its reopening, the CMBT will be disinfected and passengers visiting the terminus will be screened for their body temperature once at the entrance and again before boarding buses. They would also be offered sanitizers and a staff will be deployed at each of the six platforms at CMBT to ensure the norms are followed.
Each bus will be allowed to carry only 32 passengers against total seating capacity of 52. The middle seats in three-seater will remain empty and only one person will be allowed to sit on a two-seater.
Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) in Villupuram, will operate 1,660 trips covering all the northern districts from CMBT on the first day. “Air-conditioned buses will not be operated from Chennai to other districts,” a state transport corporation official said.
Before the pandemic set in, the facility handled an average of 1.5 lakh visitors daily, who travelled in 2,000 buses to different parts of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala.
Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh State Transport Corporation and TNSTC fleets are also likely to be operated from CMBT, until the temporary fruit market set up at the MMBT is shifted back to the Koyambedu Wholesale Market Complex. The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), which maintains MMBT, has not decided a date for this. Before the lockdown, about 12,500 passengers used MMBT every day to commute using the 315 services operated from Madhavaram.