VISAKHAPATNAM: It may not be easy going home this Sankranti season as reservations in buses and trains are almost full. Taking advantage of the situation, private bus and taxi operators hiked the fares abnormally in the past few days.
Each person has to spend an extra 1,000 to 1,500 towards fares in buses from Hyderabad to Vizag and other destinations.
According to an estimation, around one lakh people would come to various destinations in AP from Telangana, especially from Hyderabad, during the Sankranti festival days.
Though the railways has extended festival special trains, there is a waiting list in almost all the trains from January 7 to January 16, with chances of seat confirmation being very low. South central railways used to run almost 400 special trains during Christmas to Sankranthi on normal days, but the pandemic conditions restricted its services and now it is running only 200 trains. East coast railways is also running 100 to 120 trains. Both zones are adding one or two services every day, but the demand is more. Even APSRTC and Telangana RTC are running more than 200 services a day.
“Though there are seats and sleeper tickets available with private buses, many operators are creating artificial crisis and looting the public, a retired employee, G Srinivas, alleged. “With no other option, my daughter and son-in-law bought tickets each costing 2,900,” he said.
Non-AC bus fare from Vizag to Hyderabad was around 1,000, but now it is 1,800 to 2,000. “We are conducting checks on private travel buses at various places. Most of the vehicles violate norms on number of passengers, second driver and others,” a motor vehicle inspector said.
Meanwhile, officials imposed fines on more than 50 private travel buses across AP on Thursday morning, including 13 buses in Vizag.
