With Pongal holiday over, people start returning to Chennai

With the Pongal harvest festival coming to an end, people from various districts have started returning to Chennai and on Tuesday morning a flurry of activity at the bustling Koyambedu bus stand here led to a traffic snarl in the area.

Special buses are being operated by the State government from January 17 to 19 to enable those who had gone on a holiday to their hometowns for Pongal, to return to the State capital.

The specials started arriving here from Monday night and it caused traffic congestion in the area for sometime today.

About 4,130 special buses were operated from various places including Coimbatore, Salem, Madurai and the southern districts.

The trains arriving here were also fully crowded as the people had to return to their place of work.

Though Pongal is celebrated from January 14 to 16, Thaipusam festival observed in honour of Lord Murugan falls on January 18. Since January 17 falls in between the holidays, a local holiday was declared in many districts.