BANGALORE: With Diwali round the corner, Sunday evening saw scores of people working in the city heading home to join in the festivities. A huge rush is expected on Monday and Tuesday too and getting flight and bus tickets during the next week might just be next to impossible.
Although bus tickets to nearby destinations were still available on Sunday night, the bookings are expected to increase from Monday onwards.
“Currently, from our Bangalore branch, we have confirmed groups of passengers who were supposed to go to Kashmir, but have diverted their trips to the Golden Triangle (Delhi-Jaipur-Agra) instead because of the floods,” said G M J Thampy, MD of Riya Group, a travel consultant.
“This year, even though certain public holidays fell on a Sunday, there are approximately 17 occasions when one can prolong the weekend to four or even five days by taking a day off and combining it with holidays,” Thampy added.
The city has seen huge crowds travelling for every long weekend this year, leading to a traffic rush.
State transport utility KSRTC is expected to announce special buses for the festival season. Last year, close to 1,000 buses had been deployed to dealing with the Diwali rush.
“I booked flight tickets to Kolkata at least four weeks in advance just to be sure. I did not want to be stuck in a situation where I did not have a way back on the last day,” said Risi Basu, a financial analyst in the city.