COMMUTER-FRIENDLY: Buses being cleaned and lined up to clear the holiday rush.

HYDERABAD: As the festival season came to a close, a record number of 90 buses including 10 super-luxury air-conditioned Garuda buses, were operated from the Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station here to Bangalore on Tuesday to help over 3,800 passengers, many of them software techies, reach their offices in time for work.

As has been the tradition in the Ranga Reddy (RR) region of the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation, passengers booked for travel on the special services were seen off with a rose in their hands and the lilting tunes of soft `Annamacharya Keertanas' ringing in their ears.

Cultural programme

For over two hours, a cultural programme with a conductor Raju singing the keertanas, accompanied by an in-house orchestra made the wait of the passengers bearable.

Another initiative of the RR region was the introduction of friendly staff designated as Customer Service Coordinators guiding passengers to the designated platform.

Senior officials present through the evening on Tuesday to flag off the specials were Executive Directors B.R. Anand (Operations) and B. Sitaram (Hyderabad & Karimnagar regions), even as Regional Manager (Ranga Reddy) S. Nagaraju and his deputy, Divisional Manager K. Nagarajan, and the entire staff at Imliban played their roles well as hosts.

Mr. Nagaraju said the record number of specials run on Tuesday included 15 services operated directly from the offices of the Authorised Ticket Booking agents at Paradise Junction, Kukatpally Housing Board Colony, A.S. Rao Nagar, Jubilee Bus Station and Balanagar.

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