CR, BEST and MSRTC introduce additional services to meet festive demand

Central Railway has added 218 Ganpati special trains to areas like Kudal, Sawantwadi and even Mangalore this year.

Mumbai: After a two-year hiatus, transport authorities are set to introduce extra trains and buses to meet the demand as travel during festivals has picked up. Over 3,300 Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) bus routes and around 218 Ganpati special trains by Central Railway have been introduced this festive season.

Representative image (Pratik Chorge/HT Photo)

“The demand for buses towards rural Maharashtra is higher than that in pre-pandemic times therefore we have added 1,200 more buses compared to 2019. For the last two years, many have not got the opportunity to visit their hometowns for Ganesh Chaturthi, hence the excitement seems to be more this year. Some even take Ganesh idols to their native village from Mumbai in these buses,” said an officer from MSRTC.

Central Railway has added 218 Ganpati special trains to areas like Kudal, Sawantwadi and even Mangalore this year. “Last year we had around 198 trains and this year to meet the extra rush of passengers, we have introduced 218 trains in total. Moreover, the reservations for most of these routes have already been done in advance,” said a senior officer from Central Railway.

“We even received an overwhelming response for Raksha Bandhan with almost 87 lakh passengers and revenue of ₹47.5 crore between August 10 to 12 alone. In 2019, the revenue generated over three days of Raksha Bandhan holidays was around ₹100 crore,” said an officer from MSRTC.

Meanwhile, BEST has introduced special night buses for Ganesh Chaturthi in Mumbai city. During the ten-day Ganesh festival starting August 31, BEST’s open-deck heritage bus shall visit popular pandals in Fort, Girgaon, Khetwadi, Lalbaug and Byculla. These buses will be operational from 10 pm to 6 am for Ganesh darshan on a hop-on-hop-off basis. The fares for the upper deck will be ₹150 and for the lower deck will be ₹75.

“These buses will operate only during night hours like a ring route service, it will start from the museum and end at the museum. This move aims to boost tourism during Ganesh Chaturthi,” said the PRO department of BEST.