Heavy rush was witnessed at the railway station, airport and bus stations in the last two weeks during Diwali season, as thousands of passengers travelled to their home towns. During the said period, daily more than 1.5 passengers travelled from the Pune railways station, while daily 200 flights were operational from Lohegaon airport and 800 additional Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) buses were plying from the Pune division to various routes across Maharashtra.
As per officials, at Pune railway station daily at least 80,000 passengers travel across the country in 230 trains. Whereas during the festive season additionally 36 trains were running on different routes and 8 coaches were attached to various trains to clear the festive rush. The daily footfall of passengers increased up to 1.5 lakh in the last week, said officials.
“Despite the heavy crowd Pune railway division and all its departments were alert and working round the clock to monitor and clear the extra rush of passengers from the station. All the trains were fully packed going all across the country and even additional trains were given by the railways on Patna, Nanded, Nagpur, Hyderabad and various other routes,” said Manoj Jhawar, Pune railway division spokesperson.
Similarly, for MSRTC it was a bumper Diwali season as the daily revenue went up to ₹1.45 crore during the festive season.
{{/usCountry}}Similarly, for MSRTC it was a bumper Diwali season as the daily revenue went up to ₹1.45 crore during the festive season.
{{/usCountry}}“Normally on average, daily around 1.25 lakh passengers travel from Pune division while during Diwali festive season days this number went up to 1.55 lakh. Also, the income which was earlier around ₹90 lakh went up to ₹1.45 crore in the last two weeks. At least 800 additional MSRTC buses were plying across the state on all the major routes,” said Ramakant Gaikwad, MSRTC Pune divisional controller.
The additional buses were plying between October 19 to 23 and were operational from Shivajinagar, Swargate and Pune railway station ST stands. These buses were plying to Kolhapur, Solapur, Mumbai, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Yavatmal, Amravati, Akola, Jalgaon, Dhule, Nashik, Jalna, Latur, Nanded, Parbhani, Osmanabad, Beed and Buldhana.
While for the aviation sector also the daily number of flight operations increased during the Diwali period and almost went up to 180 flight operations now.
“On a normal day, the footfall is 20,000 daily, which went up to 26,000 during the last two weeks. We had to enhance our security checks and the number of flights also went up from 85 for arrival and 85 for departure during Diwali. And now as per the new winter schedule, it has almost touched up to 200 daily flight operations-- 100 for arrival and 100 for departure,” said Santosh Doke, Pune airport director.
Meanwhile, there were long queues of vehicles noticed on the highways connecting to the city from Satara, Mumbai and Ahmednagar, as people were returning to Pune after their vacations.
On Pune - Bangaluru highway near the Khed-Shivapur toll Naka there was a long queue of vehicles on Sunday and similarly, ST stands reported huge crowds as people were returning to the city.