The long pending demand of residents to shift the Velachery bus terminus from the Vijaynagar junction to a vacant space near the Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) railway station is set to be fulfilled.

The Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) has proposed to shift the bus terminus to its own location, and the work for this will begin in a few months, a senior MTC official said. Since the Adyar Bus Depot is being renovated to accommodate and operate electric buses (e-buses) and as there is a proposal to run over 1,000 e-buses, there is a need to shift the operation location for a portion of diesel buses. So, Taramani (Institute of Road Transport premises) and Velachery have been proposed as places for this shift.

As part of this project, MTC Managing Director T. Prabhushankar inspected the site located on the southern side of the Velachery MRTS station last week. The MTC will construct a bus terminus spread over 6.50 acres at a cost of ₹25 crore, for which an estimate has been readied. The facility with 16 bus bays will have a commercial complex, the official added.

The proposal is that the bus terminus will also have small bus operations and be used as a nodal point for long distance buses operated during festival days to link the information technology corridor.

The Velachery bus terminus is an important link point, with more than 60 buses being operated towards Ambattur, Tambaram, and Chennai Central. As the bus terminus is located at Vijaynagar junction, traffic bottlenecks are regular despite the presence of the twin flyovers constructed towards Taramani Link Road and Velachery Main Road from the bypass road. Since the flyovers were constructed, the residents have been demanding that the bus terminus be shifted to the vast vacant spaces available near the Velachery MRTS station.

Social activist S. Kumararaja said the move would not only create multi modal transport facility but also ease traffic congestion at the Vijaynagar junction. MRTS commuters pointed out that with train services being extended to St. Thomas Mount, small buses would help pave the way for last-mile connectivity to the two railway stations of Puzhithivakkam and Adambakkam.