MSRTC, railway revenue gets a festive boost | So Good News

Heavy rush was seen at the railway station, airport and bus stations in the last two weeks during the Diwali season as thousands of passengers left for their hometowns. During the said period, more than 1.5 passengers traveled daily from Pune railway station, while daily 200 flights operated from Lohegaon airport and 800 additional buses of Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) plyed from Pune division to various routes across Maharashtra.

According to officials, at least 80,000 passengers at Pune railway station travel across the country daily in 230 trains. While during the festive season, in addition, 36 trains ran on different routes and 8 buses were connected to different trains to clear the festive rush. The daily number of passengers increased by up to 1.5 lakh in the last week, officials said.

“Despite the huge crowd, the Pune railway division and all its departments were on alert and working round the clock to monitor and remove the extra rush of passengers from the station. All the trains were packed and running across the country and even more trains was provided by the railways on Patna, Nanded, Nagpur, Hyderabad and various other routes, said Manoj Jhawar, spokesperson of Pune railway division.

Similarly, for MSRTC, it was a bumpy Diwali season as the daily revenue went up to ₹1.45 crore during the festive season.

“Normally, an average of around 1.25 lakh passengers travel daily from the Pune division, while during the Diwali festive days, this number went up to 1.55 lakh. Also, the revenue which was earlier around ₹90 lakh went up to ₹NOK 1.45 million in the last two weeks. At least 800 additional MSRTC buses were plying across the state on all major routes, said Ramakant Gaikwad, MSRTC Pune Divisional Controller.

The additional buses ran between 19 to 23 October and operated from Shivajinagar, Swargate and Pune railway station ST stations. These buses ran to Kolhapur, Solapur, Mumbai, Aurangabad, Nagpur, Yavatmal, Amravati, Akola, Jalgaon, Dhule, Nashik, Jalna, Latur, Nanded, Parbhani, Osmanabad, Beed and Buldhana.

While for the aviation sector the daily number of flight operations also increased during the Diwali period and almost went up to 180 flight operations now.

“On a normal day, the number is 20,000 daily, which went up to 26,000 in the last two weeks. We had to improve our security checks and the number of flights also went up from 85 for arrival and 85 for departure during Diwali. And now , as per the new winter schedule, it has almost reached up to 200 daily flight operations – 100 for arrival and 100 for departure, said Santosh Doke, Airport Director, Pune.

Meanwhile, long queues of vehicles were noticed on the highways connecting the city from Satara, Mumbai and Ahmednagar as people returned to Pune after the holidays.

On the Pune – Bangaluru highway near the Khed-Shivapur toll Naka, there was a long queue of vehicles on Sunday and similarly, ST stands reported heavy crowds as people were returning to the city.