Chennai,  The Tamil Nadu government's decision to make the e-pass mandatory for those entering from Kerala has caused difficulties to thousands of passengers. The border towns of Coimbatore and Nagercoil witnessed people travelling to Tamil Nadu being stopped and not allowed to enter until the e-pass registration was done.

The Tamil Nadu government has made e-pass mandatory for those travelling to the state from Kerala since March 10 following the surge in Covid cases in Kerala.

Many were unaware of the decision and the police detained them at the borders, which led to serpentine queues.

K.M. Babu, businessman, who commutes to Coimbatore from Palakkad while speaking to IANS over the telephone said, "I was not aware of the decision even though the TN government had announced it, I had to wait for long to register for e-pass as the mobile connectivity was poor at the Walayar borders. Both the governments should have made some other arrangements as this is creating problems for people like us, who are not in a position to register under e-pass mainly owing to lack of awareness and technical handicaps".

College students, who daily travel from Parasuvakkal and Parasala at the borders of Thiruvananthapuram to Nagerocoil where several engineering and other colleges are situated, were also faced with the situation of waiting in the queues for long.

Vikas Nair, who daily commutes to Nagercoil from Parasuvakkal on Kerala-TN border told IANS, "I did not register under e-pass and this has wasted me a day as it was a long and serpentine queue and getting registered is a cumbersome process as the lack of data speed affects it. Anyhow, I have registered and hope that from today onwards, there will not be any problems."

Goods vehicles were, however, not stopped on Wednesday but will have to mandatorily register and its crew will not be given any leniency in the days to come.

M.Selvaganapathy, Station officer of Tamil Nadu Police while speaking to IANS said, "We have created proper awareness that e-pass will be mandatory since Wednesday and people ignored it. However, after we were strict, things have changed and everyone has now started to register under the site -- eregister.tnega.org and this will help".

People travelling to Bengaluru, who have to cross the Tamil Nadu border towns were also subjected to checking and after registration for e-pass were allowed to move further.