Kathmandu, October 15

People have started returning to Kathmandu Valley to take charge of their daily work as Dashain bid adieu this year.

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 Metropolitan Traffic Police Division, over 400,000 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 within the next couple of 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. 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 1,7000 over a period of three days.

Bearing in mind the travel rush for festivities, traffic police have established citizen’s help desks in 10 places of the Valley to facilitate travellers and take action against crooked transport entrepreneurs. This time around, the country witnessed no fatal road crashes as police stepped up security check on the national highways to discourage public vehicles from carrying passengers beyond their capacity. Recent hike in traffic violation fee has also acted as a deterrent to rampant violation of traffic rules.

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