MSRTC introduces 2,295 special buses for Ganesh festival, 70 to run from Pune, book yours now
Hindustan Times, Pune | ByShalaka Shinde, Pune
Sep 06, 2018 03:29 PM IST
The special buses will ply on the routes between Pune and Mumbai, and places in the Konkan belt including Sindhudurg, Sawantwadi, Chiplun, Dapoli, Rajapur, Raigad, Ratnagiri, among others.
The Maharashtra state road transport corporation (MSRTC) will deploy a total of 2,295 special buses from Pune and Mumbai to accommodate people travelling for the Ganesh festival. The special buses will ply on the routes between Pune and Mumbai, and places in the Konkan belt including Sindhudurg, Sawantwadi, Chiplun, Dapoli, Rajapur, Raigad, Ratnagiri, among others.
The special buses will start from September 8 and go on till September 13. Of the total buses, 70 will start from Pune while all the others will start from Mumbai. “Among the special buses, I think 95 per cent will ply on the Mumbai-Konkan route,” said Rahul Toro, deputy general manager of MSRTC.
“When we first announced, Pune had 35 special buses. But we introduced new buses as the demand kept increasing and buses kept getting booked. We now have 70 special buses, of which buses on September 10 and 11 are completely reserved,” said Yamaini Joshi, Pune division head of MSRTC. “From Pune, most demand is to Dapoli and Chiplun. Buses will also go to Khed and Karla (among other places),” Joshi added.
Every state transport (ST) bus has 44 seats and close to 40 on every bus is reserved by now, the officials said. “We have a fleet of more than 16,000 buses. We pool buses from other routes including Pune, Nashik and Aurangabad, to fill the need for special buses. During this period the load factor on other routes is 45-50 per cent of the regular, whereas, here we have 100 per cent load. We are serving people and fetching some revenue as well,” Toro added.
The maximum crowd ends on the night of September 12 and the return journey starts from September 17 and go on till September 19, the officials said.
With special buses, the state transport provider is also hoping to recover a part of the revenue lost during the Maratha stir. “We are hoping to collect ₹10 crore this season,” Toro said.
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News/Cities/Pune News/ MSRTC introduces 2,295 special buses for Ganesh festival, 70 to run from Pune, book yours now