Tough times for festival travellers

Vizianagaram: It will be tough time for those who want to travel on train towards north Andhra from Hyderabad or Tirupati in the coming few weeks as all the berths have been reserved till February. Same is the case with for those who travel to Vijayawada, Guntur or Tirupati from north Andhra districts.

Despite railway authorities running special trains to deal with Sankranti rush, people who plan long distance travel on certain routes are not able to get berths.

According to sources, all the important trains like Faluknuma, Visakha, Tirumala, express have no berths till the end of this month and IRCTC website is showing the waiting list of more than 70-80.

Holidays for schools were announced from January 9 and the families will move to their home towns like Vijayawada, Guntur, and Thirupati.

But the berths in the trains which travel on those routes have already been already booked. Passengers of north Andhra are depending upon trains which pass through Vizag but do not originate from here.

Most of the people would move to their home towns and villages to celebrate the Sankranti and they prefer to travel by train because of the comfort and economy.

Many of those who booked tickets are keeping their fingers crossed as they are on lengthy waiting list. Generally the passengers prefer to travel between 11 January and 18 January but the berths for all these days were booked before one month.

K Aparna, a teacher working at Nalgonda, said,“My husband and children are staying at Vizianagaram and I am working in Nalgonda district but I could not get the train tickets to reach there.

I am expecting that my waiting list ticket would be confirmed.” On the other hand, private bus operators are demanding double the price, taking advantage of the situation.

Generally, ticket from Vizianagaram to Hyderabad is around Rs 800 but the private bus operators are asking Rs 1,200 from Hyderabad to Vizianagaram on 12, 13 and 16 and 17 of this month.

P Ramya, working at Hyderabad, said, “I want to reach my native place on January 13 on Bhogi and the private bus operator said that there were no seats for January 12.

Later, he offered to provide a seat if I could pay Rs 1,200. So I am forced to pay the amount he demanded. I don’t want to miss my family so I am ready to shell out the amount to him to reach there.”