On public demand, MSRTC bus services to Bangalore revived

State Transport to tie up with agents in garden city for ticket reservations; additional booking centre coming up next to IMD office in Shivajinagar for commuters on Pune-Mumbai route

On public demand, MSRTC bus services to Bangalore revived

State Transport to tie up with agents in garden city for ticket reservations; additional booking centre coming up next to IMD office in Shivajinagar for commuters on Pune-Mumbai route

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Pying heed to the growing demand of commuters, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRTC) has decided to revive the Shivneri bus services between the city and Bangalore.

Holiday special: The summer rush owing to school vacation prompted
MSRTC to open an extra booking centre in the city for Pune-Mumbai
route. File Pic

What's more, booking tickets for this journey will also be made easy, with the MSRTC planning to tie up with booking agents in Bangalore also. Besides, the transport behemoth will also start an additional booking centre for commuters on Pune-Mumbai route.

Deputy Manager of Shivajinagar station V A Patil said: "The new booking office will be started near the city bus-stop at Khude chowk, just next to the Indian Meteorology Department in Shivajinagar. Rush in the summer season due to school holidays has prompted us to take the decision."

Via Pune
The bus services to Bangalore will start from Mumbai and go via Pune using the Pune-Bangalore highway (NH-4).Deepak Kapoor, vice-chairman and managing director of MSRTC said: "We are tying up with booking agents at Bangalore for both ways reservation."General Manager (Traffic) V V Ratnaparkhi, said the corporation will tap the booking firms used by the Karnataka State Road Transport Service (KSRTC) itself. "The first stage is contracting these agents if possible or look for other alternatives. Then we also have to lease 35 buses from private operators. The services should start by mid-April," said Ratnaparkhi.

Fewer seats
However, the semi-sleeper buses will have a seating capacity of only 41, as the seats will occupy more space. This, Ratnaparkhi said was required, since the entire journey would take 18 hours and warranted sleeping arrangements. A regular air-conditioned Shivneri Volvo bus can accommodate 45 passengers. The KSRTC currently operates its own bus service between Bangalore and Pune from the Swargate bus depot with five services daily. The MSRTC service was started on February 18 last year and was discontinued in late-July.

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