Thousands of students, software professionals and employees working in private companies in Hyderabad, who planned to celebrate the festival in their native places, were stranded in Hyderabad owing to the strike called by the employees of the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) to press for their demands.
The chief demand was the merger of the corporation with the government.
The South Central Railway (SCR), private travel buses, cabs and taxi operators rushed to Hyderabad to clear the Dasara rush as the strike came into effect on Friday midnight.
The SCR is operating special trains from various destinations.
“Dasara is one of the major festivals and we want to celebrate it with our family. We reserved tickets in TSRTC buses in advance to travel to Vijayawada but buses were cancelled,” said a passenger T. Damodar.
The APSRTC has geared up to meet the situation and is running special buses.
“Many employees, natives of East and West Godavari, Guntur, Prakasam and other districts, generally book tickets up to Vijayawada, which is a transport hub. They will then take various modes of transport to reach their native places. Now there is a huge demand for private buses,” said an operator.
APSRTC Executive Director (ED-operations) K.V.R.K. Prasad told The Hindu the corporation was running 549 buses on a regular basis to Hyderabad and 4,000 special buses had been planned for the festival.
“The Telangana government has requested us to run extra buses and we are ready. Our teams have been deputed to Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and other cities to monitor the situation,” he said.
