Festival rush in trains, buses
Hyderabad: With the beginning of Sankrathi holidays for the children of the city, the bus stands and railway stations are packed with homeward people and passengers are finding it difficult to find space in the compartments and buses.
The main railway stations in the city, Secunderabad, Kacheguda and Nampally are filled to the capacity of the platforms with passengers virtually fighting to board the trains. The situation at the bus stands is not much different with passengers unable to find seats.
The roads that lead to Andhra areas like Vijayawada, Kurnool and Macherla are also packed as the private agencies have opened temporary ticket issuing centers. Traffic on these roads is coming to a halt as private and RTC buses are occupying the roads.
City commuters are caught in the traffic for hours on the roads. The railway stations and trains especially leaving to Machilipatnam, Guntur and Vijayawada are witnessing scores of passengers.
While the families who anticipated the festive rush and booked tickets in advance for a comfortable travel are happy while those travelling in the general compartments are cursing the rush.
The Secunderabad railway station is witnessing thousands of passengers leaving for Andhra and Kerala. During the pilgrimage season, hundreds of devotees leaving for Sabarimala in Kerala turned out in large numbers, thereby making the railway station choc a bloc.
The huge volume of passengers has forced the rail authorities to open additional ticket booking counters. Passengers were also advised to buy platform tickets through Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVMs) as the ticket-counter had long queues.
This move troubled the MMTS passengers who usually purchase tickets via ATVMs. South Central Railway chief spokesperson K Sambasiva Rao said that based on the analysis of traffic demand, a total of 70 Sankranthi special trains were introduced between Secunderabad to Visakhapatnam, Kakinada, Machilipatnam, Tirupathi, Vijayawada and Guntur to cater to the needs of the passengers.
Two special Jansadharan trains with ten unreserved coaches are also being arranged between Tirupathi and Narsapur. In order to facilitate devotees heading to Sabarimala, nearly 63 special trains are being operated, he said.
Further, he explained that around 23,000 additional berths are being made available in the public reservation system (PRS) for the whole month. 'We have been monitoring the situation and putting maximum efforts to handle the crowd. For trains with long waitlists, coaches are being augmented,' he said.
News Posted: 11 January, 2015
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