To be fair though, the lack of patronage is not due to a lack of demand from VSKP. A big chunk of the traffic consists of IT employees and students, who usually prefer buses as the direct trains are not available on fridays and sundays ( something I observed during my stay in chennai over 4 years). Quite a big chunk used to take connecting trains to BZA and use GT/TN from there or catch Circar express ( my regular train from CCT-MS) from SLO ( all three have early morning arrivals at MAS/MS).
If not a daily train, at least converting both the existing weeklies to bi-weeklies ( by adding runs on Friday evening from Chennai...
more... and Sunday evening from VSKP), with a slightly earlier arrival at MAS ( 7:30 - 8 AM), would be really useful. A daily is most welcome, but at least a seamless service on weekends will help the city's commuters a lot. Even if the existing bi-weekly dedicated trains are moved to cover the weekend, there will be a good increase in patronage.
And as another blogger suggested, a daily to SBC via PER with early morning arrival at PER ( just trailing Kaziranga SF) will be a real sweet deal.