KATHMANDU, OCTOBER 15

A large crowd of people is seen at the New Bus Park at local Gongabu going to their homes in district outside the Kathmandu Valley with the start of the biggest festival of Nepalis –the Bada Dashain festival.

The government has opened advance booking of bus tickets for Dashain festival. People had started thronging the New Bus Park since Saturday as most of the schools, colleges and organisations closed for the festival holidays from today. However, the official Dashain holiday is from October 21 to 25.

Pankaj Malla, spokesperson for Lhotse Multipurpose Pvt Ltd, which has taken the responsibility of managing the New Bus Park, said more than 25,000 passengers were departing from the Bus Park on a daily basis at present.

'There is high number of passengers travelling by long and medium-route buses. Compared to the regular period, we have preponed and extended the departure time for buses from New Bus Park to cope with high passenger pressure,' he said.

According to him, 60,000 passengers have booked bus tickets in advance for Dashain so far.