Chennai: The Chennai Silks showroom fire incident, which brought the shopping area of T. Nagar to a standstill on Wednesday, was back to its usual self, buzzing with people, mostly shoppers.

Roads to T Nagar remained blocked with traffic, and trains too witnessed increased crowd with many people visiting the site of the burnt building. Autos, cabs, share autos were seen plying as usual on in Chennai's shopping hub.

Station supervisor at Mambala, Srinivasan said, "The fire incident had no impact on the passengers. We have received the usual number of passengers on these days".

Shankar, a staff at the T. Nagar bus depot, said, "The number of people coming to T. Nagar was, in fact, more in the last two days. Probably the people came to look at the burnt down structure."

However, many traders on Usman Road said that they had not witnessed any decline in footfall. A trader who did not want to be named said that business was as usual on Ranganathan Street as compared to Usman road where the fire incident happened.

Corporation gives Rs 8.95 lakh bill to Chennai Silks

City Corporation officials have handed over a bill of Rs 8.95 lakh to the Chennai Silks management as fees for demolition of the fire ravaged building on South Usman road. The permission was sent from the office of the assistant executive engineer of Town planning section on Thursday night, hours after Finance Minister D Jayakumar announced that the government would procure the cost for the demolition from the property owners.

According to sources, this is the initial estimated cost and the owners are expected to pay the amount in a week. If costs escalated, it would also be procured from them. "The approval for demolition is granted after suitable arrangements are made to reduce dust, necessary barricading and suitable material, precautionary measures to prevent danger and damage to nearby buildings," an official said.