Holidays: Travellers face harrowing time

Holidays: Travellers face harrowing time
DH News Service, Bangalore:
All means of transportation, with the exception of buses from Bangalore to other metros will remain over-crowded till the beginning of September.


If you are planning now for a journey to utilise the weekend holiday, then be warned: all means of transportation, with the exception of buses from Bangalore to other metros will remain over-crowded till the beginning of September.

The festive week began with Varamahalakshmi Puja on Friday, followed by Saturday and Sunday.
Monday and Tuesday have gone into the account of Onam and Raksha Bandhan while Muslims will observe Shab-e-Baraat on Wednesday.

Last minute rush

Those who got their seats reserved in buses and trains much earlier are better off. For latecomers, however, it is only long queues and crowded buses and trains.

Bangalore City Railway Station on Saturday witnessed huge crowds eager to get tickets.

According to sources, there are no seats left in second class sleeper coaches in trains to Hyderabad, Kochi and Chennai till August 30.

A booking clerk said, the average rush on other days used to be around 1,000 but due to festive season it has increased to around 1,200. The Railways are running some Onam special trains and have extended the period of some special trains. Yet, it could not reduce the rush from the reservation and booking counters.

It was no different at the Kempegowda Bus Terminus (KBS) on Saturday. Commuters were seen making a beeline to the ticket/reservation counters.

As usual

However, according to K A Rajkumar, General Manager (Traffic), Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation, “this is a common phenomena for the Corporation.”

“With the on-going festive season, KSRTC operates 20-25 buses to various destinations including Kerala such as Trivandrum, Ernakulam, Palakkad and Thrissur. We estimate a two percent rise in passenger traffic,” he says.

“With the commencement of Dasara and Deepavali, traffic generally picks up. With reservations done 15 days in advance, tickets to all destinations operated by KSRTC are available. Additional buses to meet demand this month, is considered as normal operation,” he adds.

Rise in traffic

Buses from the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation that operates 24 buses from KBS has also seen a three to five percent rise in traffic/revenue on Kerala bound buses.

Private bus operators including KPN, Kallada, VRL and Sharma say the weekend reservation bookings have risen on account of festive season, but will not affect availability of buses to destinations both