Bus services restored to dalits populated Anna Nagar in Coimbatore after ‘long-standing’ caste issue

COIMBATORE: Bus services have been restored to Anna Nagar, a Scheduled Caste residential area near Kembanur in Coimbatore’s Thondamuthur block, after two years of alleged caste-based obstruction.More than 300 SC families live in Anna Nagar. Bus services were stopped two years ago after dominant-caste individuals in Kembanur village had opposed the buses travelling the extra 500 metres to dalit-populated Anna Nagar. The dominant community complained that if buses started from Anna Nagar, dalit people would occupy all the seats, forcing other community commuters boarding at subsequent stops to travel standing. This forced Anna Nagar residents to walk 500 metres either to board buses or to reach home after alighting from them at Kembanur.But now following directions from Social Justice and Empowerment minister Vanni Arasu, the Coimbatore district collector and the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation acted to reinstate bus services to Anna Nagar. The first service from Gandhipuram (Route 21) reached Anna Nagar at 8am on Saturday. Residents welcomed the bus and distributed sweets to the driver, conductor and passengers.Protests by Left and progressive organisations, media reports, petitions and intervention by the State Commission for SC/ST had increased pressure on the administration to act. The issue was resolved after residents raised the matter directly with the minister, who treated the denial of transport access as a form of untouchability and ordered implementation of the original route plan without yielding to caste-based pressure.