Last year, during the Dasara season, the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) operated more than 3,000 additional services that helped generate over ₹10 crore extra revenue. This year, with most people either staying at home or using personal vehicles to travel to their home-towns to minimise the risk of contracting COVID-19, there has been no demand.
“Every year, during the Dasara season, on the last four days, people usually go to their native place in large numbers. However, this time, there is no such rush. Till Friday evening, there was no demand for additional buses. Online ticket booking for regular services is not very promising,” said a KSRTC official.
As on Friday, there were 10,000 online bookings. Last year, online bookings alone touched 60,000.
Even inter-State travel has failed to pick up. “Prior to the lockdown, we re operating more than 400 services to Tamil Nadu alone. These services are yet to resume. There used to be higher demand for Vijayawada, Hyderabad and other destinations during the festive season, especially for the premier segment of services. That is not the case now,” the official added.
To improve occupancy, the Corporation decided not to levy an additional 10% charge for weekend bookings, but the incentive has done little to increase ticket sales.
Traditional destinations like Mysuru, too, are not attracting people. Officials attribute this to the fact that Dasara in Mysuru is a low-key affair this year. During the festive season, KSRTC would operate an additional 200 services to Mysuru alone.
Meanwhile, the South Western Railways (SWR) recently announced that it will be operating 58 special trains to various destinations, and majority of them are from Bengaluru. An official of the SWR said, “The special train services will operate till November-end. Booking has started, but the travel demand and patterns can be analysed only after a few days.” said an official.