Ahead of the festive week of Christmas and New Year, the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) has relaunched the Mumbai Central to Panaji bus route on Wednesday.
This route was introduced in December last year, but was discontinued later amid the pandemic outbreak. Originating from the Mumbai Central depot, the bus will travel to Panaji via Chiplun, Kankavali, Sawantwadi and Mhapsa. MSRTC officials informed, they are hopeful that this new route will attract tourists and will play an important role in revenue generation.
"Every year lot of people from Mumbai visit Goa during December. We will be monitoring the response of passengers in this route and then will decide on whether to keep this route permanently or operate it occasionally during the festive season only," Abhijit Bhosale, MSRTC spokesperson told FPJ.
A single journey between Mumbai Central and Panaji will cost Rs 965 and there will be one bus service regularly. The bus will leave the Mumbai Central depot at 4:30 pm and the Panaji depot at 4:00 pm daily. Due to the increase in COVID19 cases, the state had decided last month that passengers arriving from Goa, Maharashtra and Delhi would require to produce COVID19 negative certificate.
On Wednesday officials informed the same would applicable for tourists travelling from Goa in buses as well, unless the state chooses to revise the rules.
For the Mumbai-Panaji route, the MSRTC will be plying its conventional seater cum sleeper coach buses.
"The buses will have 30 seats and 15 sleeper beds" Bhosale added.
