BANGALORE, November 1: All of Bangalore’s arterial roads clocked high volume of traffic on Thursday, with thousands making their way out of the city to celebrate Deepavali.
Police personnel across the city struggled to control the increased traffic flow that extended well into the night with most buses to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala scheduled to leave after 10 p.m. Roads around Majestic saw bumper-to-bumper traffic through the evening. A traffic police official said that extra personnel had been deployed on these roads.
“This kind of a situation arises every time there is a long weekend. And during Deepavali, people leave for their hometowns. So most people out on the streets near Majestic are the ones who want to take buses and trains headed to other parts of Karnataka,” the police official said.
Among other roads that saw heavy traffic were Kempe Gowda Road, Wilson Garden Police Station Road near Shanthinagar and Madivala. Vinita, an IT professional, who was heading to her hometown in Andhra Pradesh, said that though she left work early on Thursday it took her an additional two hours to reach from her office in Marathahalli to Madivala. “Today’s traffic seems to be exceptionally bad. This is probably because many IT companies have declared holiday on Friday, so people have made last-minute plans.” Ms. Vinita’s friend, Raveendran, said he paid twice the regular ticket price in order to get a last-minute ticket.
“There are plenty of seats but it is made out to be like there aren’t any. In the last minute, operators are are selling the tickets at an extraordinarily high price,” he said.
