We had to travel for a personal emergency from Chennai to another district this monday. It was a situation we never thought we would be in.
We have been holed up in our house ever since the lock down, occasionally stepping out for groceries, vegetables. We had read about the process laid out by the government and what people are going through while trying to travel from one place to another. That was all news to us since it was happening to a nameless person whom we did not know.
When you are in that situation, that is when the reality actually sinks in. When we had decided to travel on Sunday, we did not know where to start. We tried to look for the government sites that were put up to issue epass and all we got was inter state travel forms. Thankfully, I was able to reach out to friends in the whatsapp group to get the right link and get advice on the process.
When I finally got the link, we found that we just had to submit the form for the epass. The only problem was it asked for a few documents and for a lot of information. People told me that the epass would be approved in less than an hour since we had a genuine reason and it was an emergency.
We waited for an hour and got a rejection on the epass that we had submitted. Feeling frustrated and emotional, we did not know what to do. Should we just travel without an epass and explain the situation in the checkposts or should we wait to get it approved. My cousin then told us to apply it a second time and give more details and explain the situation. We got the toll free number as well and were asked to call and explain to them. Fortunately, we got our epass approved in 10 minutes when we applied it for the second time. It was valid for maximum 2 days including the return travel.
We got a message on the phone with a link to download the epass. All we had to do was show the downloaded epass at the checkposts and give them the reason for travelling. They allowed us to go through after verifying the epass.
We were wary of Covid risks, not stopping the car at any restaurant, using handsanitizer every time we paid cash at the toll gates.
It was a different experience for us - travelling 130kms on a well known route after staying at home for nearly 2 months.
The only question that we asked ourselves was - the whole process the government has put up for emergency travels seems to be helping only people who have money and have an own vehicle. We had our car, had a mobile with network connectivity and had people who helped us to understand the process.
What about the people who could not afford a personal vehicle. How do they travel during a personal emergency? It seems that our government was only putting up a process to aid the people who had money and was not concerned or bothered about the rest of the population.
We have been holed up in our house ever since the lock down, occasionally stepping out for groceries, vegetables. We had read about the process laid out by the government and what people are going through while trying to travel from one place to another. That was all news to us since it was happening to a nameless person whom we did not know.
When you are in that situation, that is when the reality actually sinks in. When we had decided to travel on Sunday, we did not know where to start. We tried to look for the government sites that were put up to issue epass and all we got was inter state travel forms. Thankfully, I was able to reach out to friends in the whatsapp group to get the right link and get advice on the process.
When I finally got the link, we found that we just had to submit the form for the epass. The only problem was it asked for a few documents and for a lot of information. People told me that the epass would be approved in less than an hour since we had a genuine reason and it was an emergency.
We waited for an hour and got a rejection on the epass that we had submitted. Feeling frustrated and emotional, we did not know what to do. Should we just travel without an epass and explain the situation in the checkposts or should we wait to get it approved. My cousin then told us to apply it a second time and give more details and explain the situation. We got the toll free number as well and were asked to call and explain to them. Fortunately, we got our epass approved in 10 minutes when we applied it for the second time. It was valid for maximum 2 days including the return travel.
We got a message on the phone with a link to download the epass. All we had to do was show the downloaded epass at the checkposts and give them the reason for travelling. They allowed us to go through after verifying the epass.
We were wary of Covid risks, not stopping the car at any restaurant, using handsanitizer every time we paid cash at the toll gates.
It was a different experience for us - travelling 130kms on a well known route after staying at home for nearly 2 months.
The only question that we asked ourselves was - the whole process the government has put up for emergency travels seems to be helping only people who have money and have an own vehicle. We had our car, had a mobile with network connectivity and had people who helped us to understand the process.
What about the people who could not afford a personal vehicle. How do they travel during a personal emergency? It seems that our government was only putting up a process to aid the people who had money and was not concerned or bothered about the rest of the population.
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