Villagers of Manganur seek evening bus as schoolchildren forced to walk 4 km

Residents of Manganur panchayat in Gandharvakkottai taluk have appealed to the State transport authorities for an additional evening bus, saying schoolchildren are forced to walk nearly 4 km from the nearest bus stop through a deserted stretch with no street lighting.

Manganur, a village near Kandharvakottai that is home to over 1,000 people and the decades-old St. Sebastian Church, is served by a handful of government buses on the Gandharvakottai –Vadukkapatti –Manganur route.

Locals and students say the morning services — which stop at the village at 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. — are inadequate, and there is no mid-morning connection that would help pupils travelling to schools in Gandharvakottai, Thachankurichi and Sengipatti.

The more acute problem, villagers say, is the return journey. “School finishes at 4.30 p.m. in many of the towns where we study,” said A. Dayana, a student who attends a private school in Thachankurichi. “The buses stop at the Manganur arch drop point only at 4 p.m. and 4.20 p.m. After that the next bus is late in the evening. We have to walk from the arch to the village in the dark. It is unsafe, especially for girls,” she said.

Villagers point out that the arch stop where most buses pause is about 4 km from Manganur. That stretch, they say, is largely unlit and sparsely populated; students returning on foot often pass through isolated patches where incidents of harassment have been reported.

“For the safety and welfare of our children, we have repeatedly asked the transport department for a bus at 6.30 p.m. via Kandharvakottai to drop students inside the village,” said social activist Arokiya Daniel.

When contacted, a senior officer of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation in Pudukkottai said the matter would be examined.