Madurai: Omni bus companies have canceled advance tickets booked a few days ago at lower fares for the Ayudha Pooja and Diwali festival travel season, claiming that the buses had broken down, and have increased the fares many times over.
In Tamil Nadu, Vinayagar Chaturthi will be celebrated on Sept. 14, Monday. In connection with this, people living in Chennai and various other places are preparing to travel to their hometowns. Taking advantage of this, the fares of omni buses have been increased many times over. Accordingly, fares have been fixed at up to Rs. 3,999 from Chennai to Tiruchy, up to Rs. 4,000 to Madurai, and up to Rs. 6,154 to Coimbatore.
Similarly, on the nights of Sept. 13 and 14, a fare of Rs. 4,499 from Tiruchi, Rs. 4,899 from Madurai, and Rs. 4,799 from Coimbatore is being charged for travel back to Chennai. Passengers have complained that this fare is up to four times higher than what is charged on normal days.
Similarly, Ayudha Pooja and Vijayadashami are celebrated on Oct. 19 and 20. Oct. 17 and 18 fall on Saturday and Sunday. Many of those traveling to their hometowns for this four-day consecutive holiday had already booked tickets on omni buses last week. They had also booked tickets in advance for Diwali holiday travel in November. During this advance booking, only the fare charged on normal days was collected.
In this situation, tickets booked last week for the Ayudha Pooja and Diwali holidays were suddenly canceled yesterday, and text messages were sent to passengers. Upon seeing that the message said the bus they had booked had broken down and that the booked ticket was being canceled, passengers were shocked.
Those whose tickets were canceled were further shocked when they tried to rebook on the same bus on the same day and saw that the fare had tripled. The fare of Rs. 700 charged from Madurai to Coimbatore has increased to Rs. 1,500 after the ticket was canceled. Therefore, it has come to light that the booked tickets were canceled by claiming that the bus had broken down, with the intention of charging many times more on the festival day.
Regarding this, social activist Anandraj said, “Even if that bus had broken down, as the Omni bus company says, couldn’t it have been repaired within the month before the journey? Or couldn’t a replacement bus have been operated? Cancelling tickets booked at a lower fare in order to exploit festival-season congestion and collect many times more in additional charges is illegal.
Omni buses are openly collecting the additional fare on online booking websites instead of keeping it secret. Many years ago, the High Court ordered that a separate committee should be formed to determine omni bus fares. However, this order has still not been implemented. Strict action should be taken against omni bus companies involved in fare extortion,” he said.
