CHENNAI : With Koyambedu boiling over with the Pongal festival crowd, this season meant more full round trips and revenue for the private bus operators and the State-run transport corporations. For the passenger, there were more `specials' to pick and choose from.

Most of the private stage carriage operators based at the Koyambedu contract carriage bus terminus said they were not affected by touts at the entrance or a few players jacking up rates during peak hours.

"All our buses have been running full for the past five days. Now, they will come back with passengers returning to Chennai," said S. Prakash Prabhu of Rathimeena Travels.

The outward surge started on January 12, according to an official in the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation's (APSRTC) bay at the Chennai Moffussil Bus Terminus (CMBT).

"It was more or less like `kaanum Pongal' crowd during the weekend," said an official with APSRTC, which ran 18 special services to Vijayawada, Anantapur, Nellore and Hyderabad on Friday and Saturday evenings.

The Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (Villupuram) started running more than 300 specials from Friday. Other than additional services to Villupuram, Kallakkurichi, Chidambaram, Salem and Tiruvannamalai, the Corporation also had 10 semi-deluxe services to Salem with features such as cellphone charging facilities.

"We will run the specials till January 22," said an official.

The State Express Transport Corporation will also run 100 extra special services it started operating from December 22 from the CMBT till January 26, 2007.

The official said the specials have been bringing in an added collection of Rs. 36.6 lakh daily. They run to Tiruchi, Madurai, Tirunelveli, Nagercoil, Thiruvananthapuram, Velankanni, Kumbakonam, Coimbatore, Salem, Thanjavur, Tirupathi and Bangalore.

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