Long weekend sees rush at tourist places

To make the most of the festival of Raksha Bandhan on Thursday and the long weekend due to back-to-back holidays on Monday, August 15 and Tuesday, August 16 on the occasion of Independence Day and the Parsee festival of Pateti, respectively, Punekars have made plans to travel to tourist spots around Pune, their hometowns and villages, and places like Mahabaleshwar, Lonavla, Kolhapur and Konkan

To make the most of the festival of Raksha Bandhan on Thursday and the long weekend due to back-to-back holidays on Monday, August 15 and Tuesday, August 16 on the occasion of Independence Day and the Parsee festival of Pateti, respectively, Punekars have made plans to travel to tourist spots around Pune, their hometowns and villages, and places like Mahabaleshwar, Lonavla, Kolhapur and Konkan.

Punekars have made plans to travel to tourist spots around Pune, their hometowns and villages, and places like Mahabaleshwar, Lonavla, Kolhapur and Konkan. (HT PHOTO)

Chandrakant Pandhare, owner of a three-star hotel in Mahabaleshwar, said, “There is full booking of all our 25 rooms at the hotel for the forthcoming four days and hotel accommodation rates have risen in Mahabaleshwar. There is a heavy rush of tourists coming from all over Maharashtra and even from other states to enjoy the long weekend.”

The situation is similar in Lonavla. Mangesh Rathi, manager at a private resort in Lonavla, said, “People are planning for this long weekend since last month as our bookings have started early and now, we hardly have any rooms left for the long weekend starting Friday. There has been a rush across tourist spots in Lonavla since Thursday morning and by Saturday, the crowd will only increase here.”

Sagar Abnawe, a Punekar, said, “We are going to Ratnagiri and nearby pilgrimage places in the Konkan belt for three days with our family as there are continuous holidays till Tuesday. We will start our journey on Sunday morning and we have booked our hotel for three days well in advance to avoid any problems.” With a lot of people travelling between Mumbai and Pune, there have been traffic jams in the ghat section of the Pune-Mumbai expressway.

While there has been a heavy rush at all major ST stands in the city – Swargate, Shivajinagar (now shifted to Wakdewadi) and Pune railway station. Additional buses have been deployed on all routes across the state by the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC). Sharing details of the Pune division MSRTC bus operations, Ramakant Gaikwad, MSRTC Pune divisional controller said, “From yesterday, there is heavy movement of ST buses as people want to go home for Raksha Bandhan and the long weekend. We have deployed extra buses to major destinations like Kolhapur, Satara, Sangli, Mumbai, Konkan, Nashik, Solapur and Aurangabad.”