SP workers ‘paralyse’ traffic at NH 24

There was bumper-to-bumper traffic along the entire Delhi-Meerut highway with Samajwadi Party workers coming in large numbers to the national Capital to join the ‘Mahadharna’ at Jantar Mantar called by the Janata Parivar.

The ill-preparedness of the traffic police came to light as commuters stuck in traffic for hours since as early as early morning. Shockingly, it took more than 10 hours for the authorities to control the situation and ensure smooth flow of traffic.

According to the reports, traffic on Meerut-Delhi stretch on NH 58 and NH 24 got paralysed as scores of vehicles was coming from various parts of central as well as western Uttar Pradesh. 

Since there were no prior arrangements made by the police, it led to long traffic snarls at various junctions. The worst affected were Modi Nagar, Murad 

Nagar and some parts of Ghaziabad where it took three to four hours for commuters to travel few kilometres.

The deployment of police personnel was only made when the news of long traffic tail spread in the area, but it failed to end the chaos. The dense fog on the stretch further worsened the situation. The situation got worse during the evening hours when the supporters returned after attending the political rally.

“Normally it takes 50 minutes to reach Delhi but it took me three hours today (Monday). The situation was same while returning as no arrangement were made by the traffic department,” said Rahul Bansal, a daily commuter living in the outskirt of Ghaziabad.

“Generally, we manage traffic of daily commuters but today (Monday)  it became tough as a huge volume of vehicles loaded with party workers hit the roads. As we were not informed earlier, it took us some time to manage the situation. We have also ensured deployment of personnel till late night to avoid snarls. 

“Although it was unprecedented flow of traffic, we are happy we managed it properly,” said Amar Singh, Superintendent of Police (Traffic) of Ghaziabad.