Except in Chennai, buses may ply in August; CM EPS to decide after talks with experts

CHENNAI: The state government is considering resumption of inter-district and intra-district bus services in August, after a month-long suspension. A decision will be taken after chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami’s meeting with district collectors and health experts on Wednesday and Thursday even as the state braces for one more lockdown phase in August. Opting for a cautious and measured approach, the government will move forward slowly and steadily, highly placed sources said.
There were 57,073 active cases on Monday, while it was 38,889 when the previous lockdown ended on June 30.“The government is considering resuming inter-district as well as intra-district bus transport, barring Chennai. A decision will be taken on July 30 after the chief minister’s meeting with the experts. The zonal system for transport, where districts are divided into zones for movement of buses, may be resumed,” said a source.
Dividing the state into eight zones, the state government resumed public transport with 50% occupancy from June 1, only to suspend the services after three weeks following a surge in cases and difficulties in tracing the contacts.
There is demand for resuming bus services as more and more businesses are opened up in non-containment areas. “But there is a feeling in the government that we should not be in a hurry to open up that may lead to another spurt and then resort to roll back. ‘Let it stabilise, let us watch and then move forward’ has been approach,” said another officer. Interstate bus transport is not on the cards, while educational institutions, shopping malls or cinema halls are unlikely to be opened.
The administrative machinery is making vigorous efforts to ramp up testing and hold aggressive fever camps. There is no backlog of samples for testing beyond 48 hours.
“There are 15,000 samples for a period of 24-48 hours, and 17,000 samples within 24 hours. We are on track and the trend will be known in a couple of days. Relaxations will be progressive,” said a senior official.
Madurai has stabilised with the positivity rate falling to 7.7% on Tuesday from 18% earlier. All southern districts, including Kanyakumari, Tuticorin and Virudhunagar have taken up aggressive testing.
On Monday, the government sanctioned Rs 69 crore from the state disaster management authority funds for institutional quarantine of passengers, accommodating asymptomatic positive patients in Covid care centres and creation of new Covid care centres in the districts, excluding Chennai. Districts with high load of cases get Rs 3 crore each.