The peak tourism season, which commenced with Dasara, has come as a windfall for the Mysore Division of South Western Railway, which earned a record Rs. 1.08 crore during the period.
The earnings were netted at the Mysore railway station alone and pertain to the 12-day period from September 28 to October 9.
Senior Divisional Commercial Manager Anup Dayanand Sadhu said the city railway station witnessed a record 2,88,315 passengers in the “unreserved” segment and accrued a net income of Rs. 1,08,06,057 during the period. This is an increase of 27 per cent over the earnings in the corresponding period during 2010 Dasara, when the Railways carried 2,50,687 passengers and the earnings stood at Rs. 81,65,092, Mr. Dayanand said.
Though this year's Dasara was a nine-day event and there was a marginal decline in the number of tourists visiting the city during the festival period, traffic surged during the weekend. On the Vijayadashmi day, the Mysore station issued 18,650 tickets catering to 31,286 passengers and the net revenue accrued was Rs. 9.5 lakh apart from handling nearly 70,000 passengers on that day. But this figure grew during the weekend and the authorities struggled to cope with the rush.
Mr. Dayand said to clear extra rush in the festive season, Mysore Division had run special train services towards Bangalore. It also augmented the composition of several trains on Mysore-Arsikere section. All the eight booking counters at the Mysore railway station were fully operational round-the-clock to facilitate the clearing of rush with minimum waiting in the queues.
An additional counter was also opened at Kuvempunagar Computerised Reservation Centre to dispense “unreserved” tickets in the said period. However, not withstanding the efforts of the railway authorities, the passengers had to struggle for tickets and tempers flew high in the queues, forcing police to intervene on some occasions to avoid any altercation.
