Monday, July 6, 2020

Cabs, autos to ply in city, no green signal for MTC buses, trains


Cabs, autos to ply in city, no green signal for MTC buses, trains

Ram Sundaram & Sindhu Kannan | TNN

06.07.2020

After three weeks, cab and auto services will ply in Chennai, but there has been no word from the state government on resumption of public transportation.

Government bus services have been stopped in all the districts for public now and the decision of resuming MTC buses will be taken after July 15, said Dharmendra Pratap Yadav, state transport secretary.

A Chennai Metro Rail Limited official said they haven’t received any instructions from the government to restart operations. They are awaiting post-Covid guidelines from the Union housing and urban affairs ministry.

With no mass transit options, demand for cabs and autos is expected to be high on Monday as many drivers haven’t returned from their native places. With lockdown norms eased, more people are expected to hit the streets from Monday for work, and cab and auto fares could be higher than usual, said drivers.

T Ramanujam, from Tamil Nadu Call Taxi Drivers Association, said available cab drivers might not resume services immediately because they haven’t got any specific update from aggregators on safety precautions. Also, some might stay at home with cases on the rise.

Sources in the taxi industry said they were planning to distribute masks, gloves and sanitisers through camps set up at filling stations and safety guidelines have been sent to all drivers.

The Chennai city police organised a meeting with transport associations on Sunday about the need to wear masks at work and providing hand sanitisers to passengers when they board their vehicles. Transporters were informed that they were allowed to ply within city limits without e-passes.

Police reiterated the cap on the number of passengers per vehicle. Autos and cabs are allowed to transport a maximum of two and three passengers. The same applied to cabs ferrying IT employees to work and back home. Public too are allowed to use their personal vehicles to go to shops or reach airport and railway stations, said a senior police officer.


WITH TRAINS, METRO RAIL AND MTC BUSES NOT OPERATIONAL YET, TAXI AND AUTO FARES ARE EXPECTED TO BE HIGH ON MONDAY WHEN A LOT OF PEOPLE BEGIN COMMUTING TO WORK, SAID DRIVERS

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