Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation (GSRTC) will put about 2,400 additional buses on the road from November 4 to 7 and run more than 8,000 extra trips for the Diwali rush, DeshGujarat reported on October 22. Surat is the main starting point, and most of the extra capacity points towards Saurashtra and North Gujarat.
Surat’s diamond workers drive the November plan
The plan names its main passengers: diamond workers from Saurashtra who live in Surat and go back to their home districts for the festival. Those workers come from Bhavnagar, Amreli, Junagadh and Rajkot districts, and the extra trips connect Surat with those districts as well as Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Mehsana, Patan, Palanpur and the Panchmahal region, according to IANS, via The Hans India. Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi is leading the arrangement.
Surat’s textile and embroidery units empty out over the same days. Our earlier report on Surat’s embroidery workers covered the pay talks running alongside that pre-Diwali exodus.
How 8,000 trips compare with earlier festival plans
The Diwali figure sits in line with what GSRTC has done in recent years. In 2024 the corporation announced 8,340 extra Diwali trips, with its Surat division alone arranging about 2,200 buses, Sakshi Post reported at the time. This year’s Raksha Bandhan plan ran about 6,500 extra trips over five days in late August, up from 6,402 a year earlier, Telangana Today reported.
Summer is the corporation’s biggest stretch. GSRTC said it ran 19,200 extra trips carrying about 9.6 lakh passengers during the 2026 summer vacation and added 300 new buses to its fleet, according to DeshGujarat. The Diwali plan squeezes more than 8,000 trips into four days, roughly 2,000 a day, against about 1,300 a day during Raksha Bandhan.
Base fares are higher than last Diwali. GSRTC raised fares by about 3% from January 1, 2026, though trips up to 9 km stayed unchanged and trips of 10 to 60 km went up by one rupee, ETV Bharat reported. Neither of the Diwali announcements gives a separate fare for the extra buses.
Booking a seat and the 24-hour helpline
- Advance and current booking are open on GSRTC’s official website, gsrtc.in.
- GSRTC divisional offices and depots also take bookings and answer route questions.
- The toll-free helpline, 1800 233 666666, runs round the clock, both reports said.
If you plan to leave Surat close to the festival, advance booking on the website lets you lock a seat before reaching the depot.
Sources: DeshGujarat, IANS via The Hans India, Telangana Today, Sakshi Post, ETV Bharat
This report was written with AI assistance from the publicly reported sources linked here; each fact was cross-checked against at least two of them.