Megha Suri | TNN The reopening of schools after the summer break has thrown the city into a severe CNG crisis. The waiting time at filling stations, which was just 5-10 minutes at the beginning of the year, has increased to an average of three to four hours, leading to serpentine queues and traffic bottlenecks at CNG pumps. While the immediate spike in demand was caused by school buses and maxicabs coming back on roads, the crisis has been building up for some months due to the surging popularity of CNG among private car owners (especially after the last petrol-diesel price hike), an increase in the bus fleet and the inability of the government to cater to the growing demand. At the receiving end are operators of public transport including buses and autos. The situation is so bad that bus operators have started hiring a new set of drivers for their buses just to get CNG filled.