HOLIDAY RUSH: Hometown bound passengers at the Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station at Imlibun on Thursday. — Photo: P.V. Sivakumar

HYDERABAD: With Sankranti just three days away, the city's transport system has already crumbled. Bus and railway stations are choked and all modes of transportation, including private road transport, are running packed.

The Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station (MGBS) and Jubilee Bus Station (JBS) witnessed a heavy rush of passengers all eager to visit their native places. People were seen struggling to get even an ordinary ticket.

Thousands of passengers stood by the busy thoroughfares of S.R. Nagar, Ameerpet and Saifabad well beyond midnight, waiting for buses. The situation may become more chaotic from Friday.

Stock reply

On Thursday, all enquiries on reserved seats at the APSRTC bus stations had the stock reply - no room. Some passengers, mostly youngsters, were willing even to travel by sitting in the driver's cabin. However, officials did not accept their pleas to avoid inconvenience to other commuters.

For Vijayawada, Rajahmundry, Bhimavaram, Nellore, Ongole, Markapuram and Chittoor routes, bookings have already been closed.

Adding to the woes, some authorised ticket-booking agents of RTC to whom 1,000 reservation tickets were allotted were reportedly selling tickets at prices several times higher than the normal. The agents, after initially claiming that all the tickets were sold out, were making a fast buck by selling the tickets at a premium forcing the RTC authorities to press into service special squads to check them.

For instance, the actual price of a super luxury RTC ticket to Vijayawada is Rs.157, but some agents were allegedly selling it at over Rs.200. Besides, private bus operators were also demanding their pound of flesh charging exorbitant rates from customers. A ticket to Vijayawada was priced at Rs. 450 and more!

Complaints galore

RTC Ranga Reddy Regional Manager S. Nagaraju said the services of a few agents located at Secunderabad, Nampally and Lakdi-ka-pul were put on hold following complaints against them.

He said passengers could alert him on 98480 90890 if any agent was indulging in such practices.

The corporation was plying as many as 2,530 additional super luxury and express services from January 6 to 14 to different parts of the State to cope up with the festival rush, he informed.

"We have made necessary arrangements to ply additional buses depending upon the need of commuters from Friday," he said. Same was the case with the South Central Railway, which was running special trains to Visakhapatnam and Kakinada.

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