Pokhara, October 14:

Dashain is around the corner but surprisingly there is little movement of passengers from here.

Booking clerks at the ticket counters of the Pokhara Transport Entrepreneurs’ Committee are wondering why there are so few passengers coming to book their tickets.

Last year, tickets sales soared a day before Ghatasthapana, but this time few passengers have come to book tickets. A booking clerk at one of the ticket counters said this year the passenger number has dropped by 30 per cent.

Bharat Dhakal at the ticket counter said not even half the seats in long distance buses bound for Ilam, Jhapa and Biratnagar in the east are filling up. “It will take another five or six days for the passenger flow to increase. Currently, we are running half-empty buses under pressure from the passengers,” he said.

According to the sales register at the counter, till yesterday only 40 passengers booked seats in a 60-seat Pokhara-Jhapa bus.

Though westward bound passengers are not as numerous as last year, still the situation is not so alarming for bus entrepreneurs. Buses going towards Nepalgunj, Dhangadhi and Kailali are doing average business.

Dhakal said the decline in passenger volume could be due to the increased number of buses and the after-effects of the Tarai violence.

“The new Pokhara-New Delhi direct bus service has also affected our passenger flow,” he added.

Short distance bus entrepreneurs also complained of reduced passenger traffic. Aas Bahadur Lama, the driver of a Pokhara-Narayanghat bus said this year it does not seem like Dashain because of the decline in passenger traffic.

“The bus is about to leave for its destination, but not even one person has booked a seat in it,” he said.

Booking counters of the Prithvi Microbus Entrepreneurs’ Committee also wore a deserted look.

A microbus helper Bir Bahadur complained that he had been shouting himself hoarse, but very few passengers had boarded the microbus.

Microbus booking clerk Sharmila Devkota said the number of passengers going to Kathmandu had dropped drastically this Dashain.