Heavy rush at Vadodara ST depot despite extra buses before Diwali

According to a Sandesh report, with only 48 hours remaining for Diwali, migrant workers and employees living in Vadodara are heading towards their native places in large numbers. Because of this, a heavy rush of passengers was witnessed at the Vadodara central ST bus stand early in the morning.

To cope with the extra passenger rush, around 100 special additional buses have been pressed into service by the Vadodara ST division. Buses going towards Panchmahals, Dahod, Jhalod and Limkheda are running completely housefull, due to which thousands of passengers have been stranded on the platforms for hours waiting for buses.

Families of workers going to their native places in Dahod, Jhalod, Limkheda, Chhota Udepur and Godhra to celebrate Diwali and Bestu Varas are the highest in number. Regular and extra buses on the routes of Dahod, Jhalod, Limkheda, Chhota Udepur and Godhra are also packed to capacity.

Passengers complain that buses coming from Bharuch, Ankleshwar and Surat via Vadodara towards Panchmahals arrive already filled, leaving no space in the buses for local passengers of the Vadodara depot. Since 5:00 AM, families with women, small children and luggage sat on the platforms eagerly waiting for buses to arrive at the earliest.

Expressing anger against the administration, stranded passengers stated that instead of just the Vadodara depot, additional point-to-point buses should be allocated based on the actual number of passengers and routes. A demand has also been made by the passengers to further increase the trips of special local buses going directly from Vadodara to Dahod and Panchmahals to reduce the pressure of the crowd.

ST Corporation officials said that these 100 additional buses will run round the clock until the second week of November to ferry passengers to and from their native places during Diwali and Bhai Beej.