The Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) will operate about 2,000 additional buses from Pune over eight to 10 days during the Diwali holiday rush, with 200 to 400 extra services planned each day for passengers travelling to their hometowns.
The additional Pune ST buses will serve destinations across Marathwada, Vidarbha, Khandesh and western Maharashtra. MSRTC Pune division controller Arun Siya said the services were being planned in response to the expected increase in passenger demand during the festival period.
Passengers travelling to Nagpur, Amravati, Dhule, Jalgaon and Buldhana will be among those covered by the additional services. Extra buses will also be made available for Nanded, Latur, Parbhani and other destinations in Marathwada. The arrangements are intended to reduce inconvenience for passengers leaving Pune for the festival holidays.
More than 85 regular buses operating from the Pune division to Vidarbha, Marathwada and western Maharashtra have already been fully reserved, according to information provided by a senior MSRTC official. The reservations include 40 buses for Vidarbha, 35 for Marathwada and 10 for western Maharashtra.
For western Maharashtra, 200 additional buses will depart from Swargate bus station apart from the regular services. These buses will serve passengers travelling towards Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur and Solapur, as well as passengers heading towards the Konkan region. Special services are also being planned from Shivajinagar bus station.
Siya said some of the additional buses would be arranged from other MSRTC divisions rather than being drawn from the Pune division’s own fleet. “Those buses will come from the concerned divisions; they are not our buses,” he said, according to the report.
The festival plan has also brought attention to the operational issues that passengers face when demand rises sharply. Travellers have asked MSRTC to ensure that the additional services are available when required, run on time and are supported by well-maintained buses. They have also sought adequate services on shorter routes and during late-night hours, particularly for villages in Pune and Satara districts.
Passenger Nikhil Sawant, who is planning to travel to Parbhani, said buses should be added to routes according to demand. He referred to breakdowns experienced on several buses during the recent Ganeshotsav and said increasing the fleet alone would not be enough without improving vehicle condition and service quality.
Regular passenger Sachin Pawar said there was often confusion at Swargate bus station at night because additional buses were not consistently available for shorter-distance routes. He called for adequate services to nearby villages in Pune and Satara districts as well as to longer-distance destinations.
An MSRTC senior official said coordination between different divisions would be important for managing the festival-period increase in passengers. The additional bus schedule will therefore depend not only on the number of vehicles deployed, but also on coordination between depots, route demand and service availability across the Pune division.
