Over three million homebound people on Sunday left Lahore for their native destinations to celebrate Eid-ul- Azha with their families and friends. The provincial metropolis was presented a deserted look on Sunday.
About three million outsiders are temporarily living in the provincial metropolis including government servants, business persons and working class people while the City witnessed their regular exodus twice in a year on the eve of Eidul Fitr and Eidul Azha.
Their movement to hometowns created extra-ordinary rush on all means of transportation including road, rail and air.
It is pertinent to mention here that the transporters are taking benefit of the situation, have started overcharging and overloading due to the absence of transport authorities. When asked about overcharging, the transporters have a stereotype reply that they come back to Lahore without passengers.
The exodus to celebrate this Eid had started on Monday and completed on Wednesday.
Majority of those who left the provincial capital included government employees, universities' students and families as they wanted to avoid huge rush at public transport.
The federal government on Monday announced two holidays for Eidul Azha. The holidays would fall on August 20-22 Overall. The students of main universities and private educational Institutions have also the same plan.
An employee of the Irrigation Department, Muhammad Salman, while standing at Badamin Bagh Larry Adda said that he was going to his native home at Multan.
"I withdrew my salary and have to purchase clothes for my children in my native city," said Salman. An official of the Education Secretariat told this scriber that that insignificant attendance would be expected at offices on coming Thursday.
Niazi Adda General Manager Ameer Khan said that the rush of people had begun at the bus terminal and it would increase day by day till Sunday night.
Majority of people, especially government servants had started leaving the City on Friday by taking one leave from their offices. Insignificant attendance was witnessed in the government offices on Saturday as most of the employees left their office after spending one or two hours on Friday.
And huge rush at public transport continued especially on last two days, Friday Saturday, The people from other provinces left Lahore on Friday while those belonging to various cities of the province left the City for their homes on Saturday.
Majority of the businessmen working in different markets left Lahore on Saturday by using their own transport facility. On Saturday morning, huge rush was witnessed at the General Bus Stand, Sherakot, Thoker Bypass, Babusabu Interchange and at other bus terminals at Niazi Adda Bund Road and Dawoo Bus Terminal Stand Ferozepur Road.
The rush continued till evening, however, late night the ratio of passengers travelling went down, General Manager of Niazi Bus Stand told this reporter. A 55-years-old resident of interior Lahore told Business Recorder that the vast majority of those leaving for Eid were government servants.
He said that the sectors generally housing official residences of the government servants were almost completely deserted, leaving mostly those who could not spare their official duties.
He was of the view that there would be no business, neither political nor bureaucratic, during the entire Eid week.
On the other side, though Pakistan Railways had announced to start three Eid special trains from Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar to cope with the extra rush during holidays, but the situation was no different at the Lahore Railway station.
Hundreds of passengers with their heavy luggage were thronged at the Lahore Railway Station on Saturday night and the unavailability of trains, especially at branch routes was being told the main reason behind such a rush.
PR move for arranging three trains for Eid passengers failed to cater to the requirement of a large number of travellers at all the four stations.
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