Kolkata · Durga Puja 2026
Cabs and app taxis
Expensive, slow, and frequently unavailable at exactly the moment you want one. Here is when it still makes sense.
Written for Durga Puja 2026 · Last updated 14 August 2026
What actually happens
Two things at once. Fares surge — a cross-city trip on Ashtami night can cost several times its ordinary fare. And drivers decline trips into and out of the pandal areas, because a fare that takes ninety minutes to cover four kilometres is a bad fare.
So the experience is often not 'expensive cab' but 'no cab'. Add a network that has stopped working near a big puja and the app may not even load.
When a cab is still right
Daytime, between clusters, away from the peak. Mornings are fine and cheap.
Airport and station transfers, where there is no reasonable alternative with luggage. Use the prepaid counters at the airport and at Howrah and Sealdah during the festival — the queue is worth it.
Getting an elderly relative or a small child home. This is the case where you accept the surge and stop calculating.
Making it work
Book from a main road, not from inside a pandal area. Walk out to a junction the driver can actually reach and set the pickup there; a pin inside a barricaded zone is a cancelled trip.
Yellow taxis are still around and, during Pujo, will often negotiate a flat fare where an app will not come at all. Agree the number before you get in.
Keep cash. Card and UPI both depend on a network that is the first thing to fail.
Autos and two-wheelers
Shared autos run fixed routes across most of the city and keep going through the festival, diverted like everything else. They are cheap, they are quick, and they will not take you into a barricaded area — which is fine, because nothing will.
Bike taxis, where available, get through traffic that cars cannot and are the fastest way across the city on a peak night. They are also a motorcycle in dense festival traffic; make your own judgement, and wear the helmet you are given.
Getting home at the end
Decide it before you go out. The three reliable options at two in the morning are the Metro while it is still running, a pre-booked car, and walking to a main road where a yellow taxi or a night bus will pass.
Standing inside a pandal area at 2:40am refreshing an app is not a plan, and it is the single most common way a good evening ends badly.
The 12 pujas on this guide
Twelve pujas with confirmed coordinates, prominent ones first — the ones with a real position, so you can pick a junction a driver can actually reach rather than dropping a pin inside a barricaded zone.
Every one of these has a confirmed position, so the Route Planner can order them and draw the walk between them.
- 66 PalliKali Temple Road, Kalighat
- AhiritolaB K Paul Avenue, Ahiritola
- Ajeya SanghatiMahatma Gandhi Road, Haridevpur
- Babubagan ClubBabu Bagan, Dhakuria
- Badamtala Ashar SanghaRashbehari Avenue, Kalighat
- Baghbazar Sarbojonin Durgotsab & ExhibitionBagbazar Street, Bagbazar
- Bakul Bagan SarbojaninBakul Bagan Road, Bhowanipore
- Ballygunge Cultural AssociationLake View Road, Ballygunge
- Barisha ClubDiamond Harbour Road, Barisha
- Barisha SarbojaninBarisha
- Behala 11 Pally Youth AssociationSatyen Roy Road, Behala
- Behala ClubDiamond Harbour Road, Behala
Read next
Driving and parking
Mostly a bad idea, with two specific exceptions. If you are driving anyway, park once and walk.
Phone, battery and signal
The network will fail you at the exact moment you need it. Plan the evening so that does not matter.
The Metro during Pujo
The one form of transport the festival cannot jam. Which lines get you where, and how to use it on a night when everybody else has had the same idea.
Written by Pujo Kolkata. Pandal listings come from the PujoKolkata master dataset, with coordinates from the IndianOil–Kolkata Police Puja Guide and from community-curated puja maps of the city. Nothing here publishes a 2026 theme, a timing or a crowd level for any puja, because none has been announced. Browse every pandal.