Ahead of Deepavali, the Chhath festivals, migrants reach Bihar in hordes covering thousands of kilometers

Ahead of Deepavali and the four-day Chhath festival, migrants visit various places in Bihar in hordes. With airfares skyrocketing and train ticket charts showing full, migrants are taking buses and even riding old autorickshaws to reach their destination, covering thousands of kilometres.

Four young men on Saturday (November 7, 2026) from Bengaluru traveled about 2,200 km in an old auto-rickshaw to reach Areraj town near Someshwarnath Dham temple in Motihari in East Champaran district of Bihar.

They reached their destination in three days and told local media that it was their “desire to celebrate Deepavali and Chhath festival with family members” and the airfares were beyond their capacity. With the train ticket charts displayed as a piece per block, they finally decided to travel to their village in Areraj by riding an old autorickshaw that one of them runs in Bengaluru for a living. The other three who accompanied him in the autorickshaw are doing other causal work in the city to survive.

However, the railway department has announced that it will run special trains to Bihar and other places so that the migrants can return to their homes ahead of the two festivals, but the returning migrants claim that there was “no vacancy” in the trains.

Meanwhile, Bihar Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary has directed police officials to be on round-the-clock vigil for the safe return of the migrants to their homes. In view of these two major festivals, all leaves for police officials have been canceled till November 17, a senior official said. The Chhath festival this year begins on November 13 and will last until November 16.

In neighboring Jharkhand, private bus operators run special buses to take local people to their destinations. From the industrial city of Jamshedpur, the number of buses plying daily to Bihar has increased from 85 to 105, but the owners said that “the demand remains unmet due to lack of space in Bihar-bound trains”.

“Demand for additional buses is strong for places like Patna, Chhapra, Siwan, Ara, Muzaffarpur, Bhagalpur, Nawada and Nalanda,” they added. “The surge in demand for additional buses is likely to increase in the coming days as the auspicious Chhath festival approaches. Many passengers are booking tickets in advance while the fare remains unchanged,” said Uday Sharma, a Jamshedpur-based bus operator. For several passengers, buses have now become the only option to travel to their destination to celebrate the festival as they claimed, “train reservations have run out”.

However, Rajesh Kumar, a software engineer, said he was lucky to have booked flights to Patna from Delhi three months ago. “Already at that time, the ticket was almost three times the normal price,” he regretted. He spent ₹60,000 on tickets alone for his family of four, he said.

“If I remember, every year, during this festival time of Diwali and Chhath, the flight fares go manifold and the train charts show that there is no room available… this has been happening for long with the same scene of overcrowded trains and buses coming to the state capital, but no government could do anything about it except announcing more government trains on some routes,” said Patnay Kumar, Patnay Kumar.

Published – 8 Nov 2026 04:50 IST