Chennai: Deepavali, the festival of lights, falls on October 31, which happens to be Thursday and the next day Friday is a working day followed by weekend holidays.
A large numbers of people have planned the festivities much in advance to celebrate the occasion in their native places.
Since, they have to return to work the next day, they have appealed to the state government to declare November 1, the day after Deepavali, as a holiday to enable an extended festivity through the weekend.
In deference to the wishes expressed by students, parents, teachers and government employees, the state government has declared a public holiday on November one forall schools, colleges and other educational institutions, besides government offices and public sector undertakings enabling an extended celebration of festival of lights with their families.
To compensate for it, the government has ordered that November 9, Saturday, would be a working day, an official release said.
The government's gesture was welcomed by various sections of the society and the people are gearing up to celebrate the festival with fun on frolic with their family members in their native places.
The state government has also announced operating of more than 2,5000 buses from various destinations including Chennai and other cities, for the benefit of the people to visit their native places to celebrate the festival and return back to work
The special buses were announced well in advance to enable the people to plan their travel and book their tickets to avoid last minute rush.
With the Omni bus operators likely to cash in on the heavy demand in meeting the last minute rush, there are likelihood of fleecing the people by increasing the ticket rates as has been happening over the years.
The government will be keeping a constant vigil of those operators fleecing the public and as has been done in the past would be initiating strict action against them.
Even Railways would be operating special trains for the benefit of public for the Deepavali festival and according to reports all the tickets were booked within minutes after it was opened a couple of months, as advance booking was made 120 days before, which was now cut short to 60 days from November one to avoid large number of cancellations.
