Even as the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) partially restored its bus service to Bengaluru in the afternoon, the passenger traffic on the trains operating between Mysuru and Bengaluru witnessed a sudden surge, due to the road blockades on the highway between the two cities.
“Passenger traffic went up by 20 to 25 per cent on the trains plying between Mysuru and Bengaluru in the afternoon,” said a railway official in Mysuru. Though a total of 24 trains operated between the two cities every day, all the 10 trains that plied in the afternoon and evening were packed to capacity, the official added.
Earlier in the day, a road blockade between Bidadi and Ramanagaram on the Bengaluru Mysuru highway by garment workers protesting against the amendments to the Employees’ Provident Fund paralysed traffic, causing inconvenience to the travelling public.
Though the buses that left Mysuru early in the morning between 5.30 a.m. and 6 a.m. reached Bengaluru, but the ones that left the city after 6 a.m. were stranded on the highway due to protests. Hence, KSRTC suspended its service to Bengaluru after 9 a.m.
The few buses that operated from Mysuru to Bengaluru after 2 p.m. took alternative and circuitous routes. “The buses plied either through Malavalli and Kanakapura or through Magadi to reach Bengaluru. To avoid a blockade in Mandya district, a few buses even took a deviation to K.M. Doddi before returning to the highway and proceeding to Bengaluru,” said a KSRTC official.
