CHENNAI: Pongal turned sour for a certain set of ticketless travellers who were caught red-handed by officials of the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) on Monday. Hundreds of commuters who travelled without tickets paid fines totalling Rs 2.53 lakh on the Kaanum Pongal Day — the concluding day of the harvest festival that people celebrated by visiting temples, relatives and public places. According to official sources, the collection on Monday was the highest collection of fine on a single day. “The average amount of fine collected on any given day ranges anywhere between Rs 50,000 and one lakh. But the fine collected on the Kaanum Pongal Day was the highest when compared to other days,” the official added. MTC buses were packed with passengers on Monday with people from Chennai, Kanchipuram and Tiruvallur districts shuttling between tourist destinations spread across the three coastal districts. The authorities intensified their raids by involving 45 special teams for the purpose. Passengers were penalised with fines higher than twice or thrice the usual ticket fare, an official claimed. Not surprisingly, the MTC also recorded revenue to the tune of Rs 3.03 crore on Monday, an increase by almost 50 per cent. The average ticket collection of the State-owned Transport Corporation would cross Rs 2.13 crore. “We operated 250 buses, in addition to the existing 3,180, to meet the demand from people on the festival eve,” an official noted.
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