With Sankranthi, one of the widely celebrated Hindu festival around the corner, all the routes led to native places, evacuating the metro cities. While the upper, middle class and people who can afford took to four-wheelers hitting the roads to reach their home towns, middle and lower class commuter were left in splits with no other alternatives besides trains and buses. However, all the railway and bus stations have been witnessing a mad rush from the past two days with people thronging at ticket counters. Though the South Central Railways and RTC authorities claim to run special services around the season, they couldn’t meet the increasing commuters.
While the bus charges are hiked like never before, taking private travels has become a burden to lower and middle-class people. According to the reports from South Central Railways, the last two days has registered about two lakhs twenty thousand passengers while usual footfall would be below eighty thousand on average. The authorities stated that they have made about 431 special trains available in this festive season. Secunderabad railway station has been all busy with passengers rushing into trains irrespective of reservation and general bogies. While the authorities deployed special police officers to control the chaos, it was said to be vain.
