Mumbai: Brushing aside cash crunch, Mumbaikars are all geared up to bid the passing year a good- bye and welcome New Year-2017 with full celebrations.
For many revellers, New Year celebrations will be an open-air extravaganza at spots like the Gateway of India, Marine Drive, Worli Seaface, Juhu and Aksa beach as demonetisation dampened the spirit of celebration at places like hotels, restaurants and discos.
Office-bearers of hotel and restaurant association confirmed that there was a considerable drop in hotel bookings.
"There has been a drop of 25 per cent to 30 per cent in the booking as compared to last year," an office-bearer of the Hotel and Restaurant Association, Western India, told PTI.
Some of the residents in city meanwhile decided to celebrate only after listening to the speech of PM Narendra Modi who will be addressing the nation tonight.
"We are pretty much sure that he (PM Modi) is going to give us all the reason to celebrate the New Year in a fantastic way," said Amit Kumar, an executive with a pharmaceutical company.
Transport operators mainly Railways and BEST undertaking will be running special services for the revellers.
Central Railway has planned to run four services on the Main line from CST to Kalyan and on Harbour Line from CST to Panvel each, while Western Railway is set to run 8 services between Churchgate to Virar in the intervening night of December 31 and January 1. BEST undertaking will be operating 17 additional services.
