The festival exodus from Nepal's capital has crossed the half-million mark, with more than 576,000 people leaving the Kathmandu Valley since Ghatasthapana, the first day of the 10-day Bada Dashain festival, according to the Kathmandu Valley Traffic Police Office. A total of 576,578 passengers had departed the Valley in 79,676 vehicles as of the latest count, an average of just over seven travelers for every vehicle on the road. Traffic has risen sharply at major exit points such as New Bus Park in Gongabu, Machhapokhari and Kalanki, while damaged highways beyond the capital have tested the travel network used by the hundreds of thousands of people making their way home for the festival. The latest tally was reported by Khabarhub.
Departures build steadily since Ghatasthapana
The figures compiled by traffic police chart a steady and accelerating outflow as Dashain got under way. In the first three days after Ghatasthapana, 109,636 people had left the Valley. By the middle of the festival, the count had climbed to 348,000, and by October 17, departures had swelled to nearly 500,000, according to figures released by traffic police spokesperson Naresh Raj Subedi. As of the latest count, the total stood at 576,578 people in 79,676 vehicles.
The milestones published as the count progressed show how the movement gathered pace:
- 109,636 people left the Valley in the first three days after Ghatasthapana
- 348,000 departures were recorded by mid-festival
- Nearly 500,000 people had left by October 17
- 576,578 people in 79,676 vehicles had departed as of the latest count
Moving from just over 100,000 early in the festival to well over half a million within roughly the first week, the exodus has grown by hundreds of thousands of passengers in a matter of days. The figures from the Kathmandu Valley Traffic Police Office have been updated at successive stages of the festival, providing a running measure of the drain of people from the capital as Bada Dashain progresses.
Gongabu, Machhapokhari and Kalanki handle the rush
New Bus Park in Gongabu has been at the heart of the outflow, with more than 207,000 passengers leaving the capital through the terminal for Dashain, according to My Republica. Alongside Machhapokhari and Kalanki, it is one of the major exit points where traffic has risen as travelers converge on the Valley's principal gateways.
The concentration of so many departures at a handful of locations underlines the scale of the operation involved in moving the festival crowd out of the capital. With 79,676 vehicles counted leaving the Valley, the flow of traffic through these exit points has continued day after day since Ghatasthapana, keeping the pressure on the terminals and the routes leading out of the city.
Damaged highways test the travel network
The journey out of the Valley has been complicated by the condition of the roads themselves. The Himalayan Times reported that the exodus, which had topped 348,000 at that stage, was testing a travel network strained by damaged highways.
For the hundreds of thousands of people heading to their home districts, road damage has added a further layer of difficulty to festival travel. Even so, departures have continued to climb through the festival period, with the recorded total rising from 348,000 at mid-festival to 576,578 in the latest count, a clear indication that demand on the network has remained heavy despite the obstacles along the way.
Traffic police track the festival movement
Deputy Superintendent of Police Rabindra Khanal reported that departures were recorded through various checkpoints around the Valley, with the Kathmandu Valley Traffic Police Office consolidating the counts into the running totals released to the public. The combination of checkpoint reporting and figures from key hubs such as Gongabu has allowed the office to track both the number of people and the number of vehicles involved in the movement.
The tally of 576,578 passengers in 79,676 vehicles offers one of the clearest snapshots yet of the scale of Dashain travel out of Kathmandu. It captures not only the volume of people leaving the capital but also the vehicle traffic generated by the festival season, from crowded long-distance buses to private cars carrying families home.
With the 10-day Bada Dashain festival under way, the figures from the Kathmandu Valley Traffic Police Office document a sustained movement of people out of the capital, rising from just over 100,000 in the opening days to more than 576,000 as the festival progressed. That flow has pressed Gongabu, Machhapokhari and Kalanki, along with the highways beyond them, to carry one of the busiest travel periods of the year.
