Transport Minister S.S. Sivasankar flagged off the bus services on new routes in Ranipet and Tirupattur districts on Friday.
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
Commuters from interior farming villages in Ranipet and Tirupattur districts can now travel on 10 new routes as bus services connecting Dharmapuri and Chennai with Tirupattur, Vellore, Arcot and Ranipet were introduced on Friday.
Accompanied by Minister for Handlooms and Textiles, Khadi and Village Industries Board, R. Gandhi, and Ranipet Collector J. U. Chandrakala, Transport Minister S.S. Sivasankar flagged off the bus services on the new routes, bringing relief to hundreds of commuters from villages in the district. โThe aim is to ensure that women and other commuters, mainly farmers, get access to big towns from their villages,โ said K. Gunasekaran, Managing Director, Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (Vellore Region).
Of the five new routes in Ranipet district, mofussil bus services on two routes, including Tiruttani-Bengaluru, will pass through Sholinghur, Walajah, Arcot and Vellore towns, each surrounded by over 50 farming and remote villages.
Buses for the remaining three new routes have been introduced under Vidiyal Payanam, a free bus travel scheme for women. These new routes are Arcot-Sholinghur through Walajah; Walajah-Katpadi through Tiruvalam and Arcot-Mambakkam through Kalavai. These routes connect most of the farming villages.
In Tirupattur, new buses were introduced on five routes. While one of them is between Dharmapuri and Chennai, passing through Tirupattur, Vaniyambadi, Ambur and Vellore, another is from Ambur to Bengaluru. Buses under the free travel scheme for women were introduced between Tirupattur and Yelagiri Hills, and Ambur and Gudiyatham.
Buses on these new routes in Ranipet and Tirupattur districts will be operated on all days, including Sundays. The buses were purchased at a cost of โน1.93 crore for each district. Tirupattur Collector K. Tharpagaraj, and MLAs for Jolarpet (Tirupattur) and Arcot (Ranipet) Assembly constituencies, K. Devaraji and J.L. Eeswarappan, were present.
