I, Darpan Thakkar, reside in Delhi and planned a vacation trip to Vaishno Devi. The Bus India provides bus services from Delhi to Katra and back in alliance with PUNBUS. I booked my return tickets with them. The passensers are supposed to board bus in Delhi from ISBT, Kashmiri Gate and in Katra from the Bus Station as mentioned in the ticket reservation.
I boarded from Delhi on 13th Aug '11 at 1800 hours IST. The bus driver stopped the bus almost 2-3 Kms before Katra, making an excuse that there was a jam and asked all the passenders to de-board. He parked the bus on a sideway, where in it was a moving jam, and all the buses were moving slowly towards Katra. I was travelling with my parents and family and had a reservation of 6 seats. We had to walk all the way to Katra, and we had no clue of the distance until we reached there as we were travelling for the first time. Throughout the travel, although it was a Volvo A/C class booking, he just turned on the blowers and was turning the A/C on and off besides regular complaint of the passengers.
While my return, I again had 6 tickets booked for the Volvo A/C calss for the 15th Aug '11 to be boarded at 13:15 hours IST from the same vendor online. The place of boarding mentioned was Bus Station, Katra. My whole family was waiting at the spot for bus, however the bus never arrived. The phone numbers to reach the vendor were never mentioned in the online ticket that I had.
I somehow was running throughout the place and different bus parkings in Katra, along with my family to find the bus. When I was not able to find the bus, I called the Delhi ISBT, Kashmiri Gate for help. A gentleman at the helpline provided me phone numbers for the incharge at Pathankot Bus Station - Mr. Santokh (09814886657). Whn I called this individual, he was not sure of the status and promised me a call back. In few minutes when I called him that the bus was a Jammu Station and never turned up at Katra, as driver decided to turn back on his way to Katra when stopped by police on the occassion of 15th Aug.
I requested him to arrange something for my family, which he denied. I requested him to make the bus wait at Jammu and I can commute there by a cab, which he again declined saying he cannot contact the bud driver, I even suggested him to call the Jammu bus station, however he just hang up on me.
My entire family was stuck at the place in afternoon with no arrangements to return back to Delhi. I called him again and asked him 'why I was not informed earlier? ' to which he said 'I don't know, the driver's phone do not have signals.'
This was a tough situation which we were facing as there were no more buses plying back to Delhi, no Rail reservations were available and no flights were flying. I finally had to book a cab all the way to Delhi and spend an extra INR 13000 for it, including the discomfort of a long journey and bad weather.
The entire money spent on tickets was wasted for me. And me and my brother had to take a day off from work after reaching Delhi, as we reached late than the planned time.
PNR Number for tickets - P137390 & P137391
0 comments