No tickets for Sankranti

• All Sankranti special trains have been booked
• APSRTC, private buses too booked well in advance
• Private travels reluctant to run special buses
• There is no guarantee of tatkal tickets

If you haven’t booked tickets for your Sankranti vacation, sadly your chances of heading to your native town now looks bleak. Despite introducing a number of special trains for Sankranti, the demand is so huge that all the tickets have been booked well in advance. The waiting list too has hit the ceiling. One can buy a ticket at the last moment through Tatkal, but there is no certainty. While buses remain the next best alternative, this time around, private players have refused to add to the fleet of buses as a sign of protest against RTA officials who are harassing them after the series of Volvo crashes

Nothing can be a better feeling than celebrating one of the biggest festivals, Sankranti, with family members. So it’s a tradition that people who work in the city head to their hometown for indulging in the harvest festival. People usually travel to places like Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Kakinada, Tirupati, Bidar etc. The usual mode of transport is train followed by bus. With the Volvo bus mishap still fresh in the minds of public, this season, there is an increased preference to travel via train and APSRTC buses.

Tickets for most of the trains connecting coastal districts were sold out months ago. The waiting list tickets have already touched 500 and are still on the rise. There are no tickets available for journey on January 10, 11, 12 and 13. It should be noted that the South Central Railway (SCR) added more than 60 extra coaches to all the popular trains, but not enough due to the rising demand.

The SCR authorities announced 30 special trains to tackle the festive rush. But even they have been sold out or have a long waiting list. The only hope is that passengers can book a few tickets a day before, under the Tatkal quota. But there is uncertainty till the last moment. Reports from the SCR suggest that it might operate additional trains to meet the demand.

The trend is the same with APSRTC buses too. AC bus services like Garuda, Garuda Plus and Vennela are already booked to destinations like Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Tirupati. Last year, the APSRTC operated more than 4,000 special buses to various destinations. With increased preference to trains and APSRTC buses, it looks like they have to operate more buses than last year to tackle the rush. “Our Initial plan was to operate 4,960 buses from city from January 7 to 12.

Majority of the private buses are staying off the road and the passengers looking towards the APSRTC. This has led to increase in demand. Keeping this in view, we have decided to operate 6000 buses to tackle festive rush,” said A Koteswara Rao, Executive Director, APSRTC Greater Hyderabad Zone.

Private bus operators.

During the festive season, private bus operators used to run special buses and, of course, charge double the fares. As many as 400 buses would be seen running to various destinations in the festive season. However, things are not that happy for private bus operators this season. There are not many takers for private buses. Lakdi-ka-Pul, which is the hub for most private tour operators, has not been seeing much business. Even the tour operators are not very optimistic about this festive season. Sree Kaleshwari Travels and Kesineni, two of the largest tour operators in this region, said that they would not be announcing any new tour packages or special buses to tackle the festive crowd.

Most the private tour operators in Lakdi-ka-Pul say that they would retain the price but would not make any additions to their fleet for the festive weekend. Subash Chandra Bose, president, Andhra Pradesh Private Bus Owners’ Association, said, “We have decided not be launch any new buses for Sankranti. We have been harassed enough by the RTA officials. So we will not be adding a new fleet to tackle the traffic. We have decided not to increase the price, the tickets are actually selling like hot-cakes and will run out soon.”