Indian Railways News => | Topic started by nikhilndls on Sep 09, 2013 - 14:56:59 PM |
Title - Special: Onam rush, the same old storyPosted by : nikhilndls on Sep 09, 2013 - 14:56:59 PM |
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Kozhikode: The festive season and vacations bring with them a surge in air and rail passenger traffic, but the state has proved a complete failure in handling the rush of people.With Onam falling on September 16, a Monday this year, train tickets from cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai to major cities in Kerala have been sold out weeks ago.In the struggle to reach home, non-resident Keralites are being forced to depend on tatkal tickets as there is a nearly 3000 long waiting list on most of the daily trains to the Malabar, such as the Chennai- Mangalore superfast, and Yeshwanthpur- Kannur Express.But diminishing the hopes of passengers, only less than a 100 tatkal tickets are issued for a train on a given day and that too at a cost of Rs 1200 or more by some travel agencies in Bengaluru. Adding to passenger troubles, tickets of the Kerala bound Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation buses for the first three weeks of September were completely sold out by August last. Also, while bus fares from cities like Bengaluru to the state have risen sharply, air fares between the Middle East and Kerala have risen by nearly 300 per cent. “There is usually a surge in inward bound travelling to Kerala during Onam, Christmas, Eid and the summer vacations coinciding with the closure of schools in March with a good many Malayalis settled in other parts of the country and abroad heading back home. |