Karwar: Bus passengers of Uttara Kannada district had to face hardship due to shortage of buses, on Friday.

With the Election Commission having hired the services of State run buses to transport Electronic Voting Machines and Voter-verified paper audit trail gadgets along with shifting the election officials to their designated polling stations, bus passengers had a tough time waiting for buses.

Long hours

Passengers waiting for long hours at bus stand for the arrival of buses was a common sight across the district.

People, whose votes are in other districts, also had to suffer due to scarcity of buses.

The administration has hired 175 buses and 132 maxi-cabs for the purpose, which has resulted in shortage of buses for the passengers. The passengers were seen boarding any and every bus that arrived at the bus stand to reach their destinations. Most of the buses were also seen overloaded with the passengers.

Long distances

Buses plying towards Hubballi, Dharwad, Mangalore, Vijypur, Belagavi and Bengaluru were packed to the seams and passengers were seen traveling long distances standing.

Cashing in on this, and making the most of the opportune moment, several private bus service providers multiplied the bus fares to Bengaluru and other places.

However, a KSRTC official informed said more number of buses have been deployed taking into account that many buses have been hired by the election commission.

“We are also making sure that time gap between two bus service is also maintained,” he said.