Andhra Pradesh January 5th, 2014: The Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation announced a New Year gift for tourists with a special, one-day Visakhapatnam-Araku-Borra Caves package. Passengers can visit Borra Caves, Araku Valley, Coffee Plantation and Tribal Museum besides watching a Dhimsa Dance performance. The package is one of the 12 special packages announced by APSRTC across the state.

APSRTC Vizianagaram zone executive director A Ramakrishna said they had decided to launch the package keeping in view the high tourist inflow to Araku during Sankranti. "The package will be offered only on Sundays, with the first bus to be flagged off on January 5. We are trying this on a pilot basis this month till January 26. We will decide on whether to continue the package after examining passenger feedback," Ramakrishna said, pointing out that the package is on offer at Rs 674 for adults and Rs 524 for children.

Meanwhile, APSRTC Dwaraka Bus Station assistant traffic manager K Rajasekhar said 10 tourists had already reserved seats for the inaugural Vizag-Araku tour package so far. "The seating capacity of the bus is 40. We hope that the remaining 30 seats will be reserved by Saturday," he said.

The Araku special bus will depart from DBS at 7.30 am on Sunday and reach Borra Caves at 10 am, where the passengers will have one-and-half hours to visit the caves. The bus will then leave for the Coffee Plantations at Anantagiri and from there to Araku. Then it will cover Padmapuram Gardens, Tribal Museum and Coffee Museum till 4 pm and will reach Mountain View Resorts at Tyda where passengers will be treated to a Dhimsa dance performance. In addition to the Araku package, the RTC also rolled out a dedicated special bus service from DBS to Tadipudi reservoir in Vizianagaram district on January 1. "The special bus for Tadipudi has been launched as a regular service. We have not announced a tourism package for the service as we will first take passenger feedback and are yet to carry out negotiations with other service providers like resorts and hotels. We will take a decision on this in the future," Ramakrishna said, adding that the bus goes up to the reservoir bank.