By Express News Service HYDERABAD: The travel for this Sankranti has put immense financial burden on commuters with an increase in fares across all bus services. The biggest blow has been the increase in base fares of RTC buses. Not only are all the regular RTC buses tickets expensive by Rs 200-Rs 300, even the seats on special buses for the festive season are charging 50 per cent more on increased fare. Commuters are left with little to no choice as even private buses are surging their prices by up to three times with tickets to Vijayawada going for almost Rs 2,000 in AC buses for a seven-hour journey. The surge in prices has been persistent since Friday, and prices may further rise till Wednesday, January 15. While AC sleeper is going for anywhere between Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000, the non-AC seats are going for just under Rs 1,000. Similarly, tickets to Vizag have gone up to Rs 2,500 on AC sleeper private buses, leaving commuters no option but to pay dearly for the 12-hour journey. This year, the TSRTC and APSRTC rates are in the same bracket. "Until last year, TSRTC tickets were affordable, however, now they are almost Rs 2,000," rued Pranith Krishna. Several commuters also took to Twitter to complain. "RTC has already raised the base fare, they should not have further hiked prices," rued Akshay Kumar, an IT professional.

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