Heavy downpour brings traffic to standstill in Delhi, NCR

Heavy downpour in Delhi and in national capital region left roads and residential areas waterlogged, leading to a major traffic congestion, serpentine traffic jams where vehicles were locked bumper to bumper during early hours on Thursday.

The temperature relief seems to be for only those who stayed indoors while who moved out on streets for work were stuck on roads either due to traffic jams or water logging.

The traffic police control room of Delhi Police spent a busy day on Thursday where till evening, close to 150 calls related to traffic congestion were made by commuters. Mostly the calls were from south Delhi areas. Okhla, Malviya Nagar along with Nizamuddin reported for jams.

The Delhi Traffic Police informed commuters through twitter "Traffic is heavy on RTR due to overflow of sewer water. Kindly avoid the stretch."

A TV journalist Kamaljit Sandhu said, "Epic jam in national capital Delhi. Slowing down the pace of Delhi NCR each time it pours down.Can we call this world class ?"

Office and school goers were stuck in massive jams as traffic signals malfunctioned in many areas due to the rains, police and civic officials said. In many places, commuters complained of autos hiking prices due to shortage of vehicles on the road.

Some people were even seen hiring a manual rickshaw to cross a small water logged stretch.

Some of the worst affected areas were Noida, Mathura Road, Delhi Gate, Ashram and parts of Ring Road in south Delhi.

Gurugram Traffic Police alerted commuters early morning on Thursday saying "Maximum rush of kawariyas today, rainy conditions and office hours. Please plan accordingly.Gurugram Traffic Police is on the job."

Water logging was seen at IMT manesar in Gurugram that resulted in slow traffic movement. The cops along with the civic authorities had to flush the water out of the roads.

In Noida, water logging was reported from various places including Sector 60 underpass and Sector 62 damaged roads which led the traffic to self divert to Sector 58 and 59 resulting in traffic chaos in the area.