No tickets for Sankranti

Hyderabad: With new year’s eve and Sankranti being the peak season for travelling home to the districts, travellers are facing severe problems with no tickets available in trains, APSRTC or private buses. Many trains and APSRTC buses have closed bookings for travel to districts ahead of Sankranti while a handful of private buses are still offering tickets at premium rates.

No train tickets are available for travel during the upcoming Sankranti season, long waiting lists are pending while quotas are running full.

Bookings for many long distance trains to Visakhapatnam, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and other top destinations have already stopped and agents are demanding a premium for tickets. Serpentine queues can be witnessed at  booking counters.

Bus tickets are still available but on certain key days barely 20 tickets are available. No bus or train tickets are available on certain routes like Vizianagaram, Manikonda and Visakhapatnam ahead of Sankranti.

With no other options passengers are forced to shell out Rs 500 to Rs 600 extra for bus tickets.

“I wanted tickets for Vizianagaram for January 11 or 12 but could not get train or bus tickets. I have decided to take a private bus as it is the only ticket being offered by booking agents at additional charges,” said Vishnu Rao, a student at JNTU.

In view of the heavy rush  Railways and APSRTC officials plan to run special trains to ease the rush of passengers.