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| Delhi-Lahore bus service is hit hard | | | BL KAK
NEW DELHI, JAN 14
It is offical: Bus service between New Delhi and Lahore has been hit hard. The service which was started in 1999, has ceased to be much sought after for quite sometime now. And the New Delhi-Lahore bus service is not the only channel to continue people-to-people contacts between India and Pakistan.
It is also offical: Waiting time to get a seat on the Delhi-Lahore bus has dramatically dropped from two months to just 10 days. There is no maddening rush at the Ambedkar terminal in central Delhi where the Sada-e-Sarhad (Call of the borders) bus commences its journey.
True, the bus is still running 'house-full'. But the response has now become lukewarm, with bookings dropping to a maximum of up to 10 days in advance. Have people stopped travelling to Pakistan? Answer: As the Indians and Pakistanis have more options now, the dependence on the Delhi-Lahore bus service alone is over. These days more bus and train services have started from diferent parts of India.
They include the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service and the shorter Amritsar-Lahore bus link. Trans-border rail services that got snapped are also back on the track. After the Samjhauta Express, which runs from Amritsar to Lahore, the Thar Express recommenced its services in 2006, after a good 41-year gap. It runs between Munabao in Rajasthan and Khokrapar in Pakistan's Sindh province.
But the Thar Express, despite taking 72 long hours to complete its journey in contrast to Sada-e-Sarhad's 12 hours, is more preferred by the common man. This spins off from the fact that the bus fare, at Rs 1,250, is much higher than the train's Rs 234.
The opening up of more routes and more means of travel means that people do not necessarily have to come to Delhi to take a bus to Pakistan. Earlier, there used to be a big rush from Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan for Sada-e-Sarhad. Now that is no longer the case.
And of course, for the high flying ones, the air route is always the most preferred one.
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