Kathmandu, October 3

The inflow of people to Kathmandu Valley after celebrating Dashain in their home districts is increasing.

According to Metropolitan Traffic Police Division, the number of people returning to the Valley to take charge of their daily work is gradually increasing from Sunday. This is expected to continue till Friday as Dashain will officially conclude with Kojagrat Purnima on Thursday.

Nearly 2.2 million people, including migrant workers, civil servants and students, had left the Valley for their ancestral homes to celebrate Dashain with their relatives.

According to the MTPD, over 500,000 people entered the Valley via all four entry points — Nagdhunga, Bhaktapur, Mudkhu and Pharping — in the last three days and the number is expected to double in the next couple of days.

The inflow of people to Kathmandu is more than four times higher than their outflow, said the MTPD. Nearly 30,000 vehicles, both four-wheelers and two-wheelers entered the Valley against the exit of 21,000 over a period of three days. Not all people, who travelled to their home districts, will return to the Valley soon as students will enjoy a month-long holiday till Chhath.

Bearing in mind the travel rush for festivities, traffic police have set up passenger help desks in 12 places of the Valley to facilitate travellers and take action against crooked transport entrepreneurs.

This time around, the country witnessed no fatal road crashes except the jeep accident in Kavre as police stepped up security check on the national highways to discourage public vehicles from carrying passengers beyond their capacity.

To prevent road accidents, the government had made it mandatory for long-route passenger vehicles to maintain two drivers each.