Railway, bus stations see sea of humanity on festival eve

On second day home-bound holiday crowd clamoured for seats or berths on all available means of public transport

Pushing luck: Home-bound passengers rush to board a train at the Secunderabad Railway Station in Hyderabad on Friday.

A few lakhs of people took time off for the Sankranti festival, catching buses and trains from the twin cities to several destinations in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Buses and trains were packed choc-a-bloc with people purchasing tickets and boarding the vehicles regardless of whether they had reservations or not. Unlike the usual one lakh-plus crowd that usually throng the Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station (MGBS), officials said there was at least 50,000 more, considering the festive season.

Special buses and trains ran full. The Telangana State Road Transport Corporation operated over 1,000 special buses on special fares from more than a dozen points across the twin cities, including the MGBS and Jubilee Bus Station, apart from Kukatpally Housing Board Colony, Dilsukhnagar and Uppal Bus Station, to name a few.

“I do not know why Government-run corporations should charge one-and-a-half fares on special buses, but what can we do,” said Ramesh, who was going to Ongole with his family. Same was the case with Prema, a techie who wanted to be with her family in Kakinada for the festival.

The South Central Railway had, by arranging special trains and augmenting carrying capacity in scheduled trains, ensured that a minimum of one lakh additional berths were made available. Yet, it did not appear to be enough for people who clamoured for berths.

Private bus operators made a fast buck hiking fares almost three to four times, to say the least. Travellers to destinations in Telangana State were considerably more than those to Andhra Pradesh because the latter had already left for their native places on Thursday evening.

Platforms at Hyderabad, Kacheguda and Secunderabad railway stations were packed, what with people running around and checking out every available source for a confirmed ticket. Waiting halls were full too with people waiting for emergency quotas to be released.

If this was the scene at bus stations and railway stations, There was at least a km-long queue of vehicles at toll plazas on the highway leading to Vijayawada and Bengaluru, at Choutuppal and Shadnagar, was such that there was at least a km-long queue with vehicles waiting to pass. Adding to the delay was Compounding the confusion was the fact that the toll plazas allowed payment of toll to be made through PayTm and credit cards which took longer time to complete the transactions.