18-hour jam cripples Gurgaon
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18-hour jam cripples Gurgaon

The city has come to a standstill, since Thursday afternoon's heavy rains played havoc on its traffic, revealing its utter unpreparedness in handling the monsoons.

18-hour jam cripples Gurgaon

Millennium City witnessed its worst monsoon nightmare yesterday, with commuters stuck in an 18-hour-long traffic jam on NH 8 that stretched for an unbelievable 25 km. So much so that many people had to spend the night on the streets. It was utter chaos. 

Many Gurgaon schools, including Delhi Public School Sector 45, Delhi Public School Sushant Lok, The Millennium School, St Xavier’s School and GD Goenka Public School, will remained closed today and tomorrow.

Traffic snarls in different areas have made it difficult for school buses to drop children back home on time. Narrating her experience, Samarth Singh, a parent, said, “My daughter is in Class II and usually reaches home by 3 pm. I was tense when the bus did not reach on time. After making several calls, I was informed by the school that there was a really bad jam on the way. She was finally dropped at 4.30 pm.”

  

According to commuters, the city is completely waterlogged, causing almost standstill traffic snarls during the morning peak hours. The worst-hit areas are major junctions on the expressway, including Cyber City, Shankar Chowk, Iffco Chowk, Signature Towers, Rajiv Chowk, MG Road, Old Delhi Road, Ghata Chowk, Sector 15 and other older parts of Gurgaon.

Traffic on all major arterial roads connecting the Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road and the Gurgaon Expressway has barely been moving. Most commuters took detours to reach office; very few, however, could reach on time. Luv Pahuja, working in Udyog Vihar, Phase 4, was stuck in traffic for four hours and had to finally go back home, which took him another two hours. “I am seeing a congestion of this magnitude for the first time — there has been no movement for hours. So I went back rather than just waiting.” The pressure of highway jams, too, soon shifted to the city’s arterial roads and to the Old Delhi Road.

The roads leading from the main Gurgaon bus stand to New Railway Road and from Sohna Chowk to Old Railway Road were waterlogged as well. The side lanes of the New and Old Railway Road had been dug up for quite a few weeks now, and the excess mud washed into the drains causing them to choke. Storm water entered the main bus terminal, and caused jams there as well.

Complaining about heavy waterlogging, Tapan Bhatnagar, a resident of Sector 4, said, “If a few hours of rain can cause such damage, I shudder to think what the situation will be when the showers pick up pace. The situation exposed the utter lack of preparedness on the part of the civic authorities — they failed to handle even two hours of rain. Our area was submerged in knee-deep water.”

The Delhi-Jaipur side, too, witnessed heavy congestion. MG Road, the Sector 29 road, Cyber City, Sector 15 and Udyog Vihar were crammed as well, as commuters searched for alternative routes. “It took me 30 minutes to cover  just a kilometre from my office in Udyog Vihar to Shankar Chowk on the Gurgaon Expressway. The service lane was totally jammed,” said Diwakar Sengupta, a daily commuter.

TL Satya Prakash, deputy commissioner of Gurgaon and MCG Commissioner, told City Spidey, “Keeping in mind the security and safety of schoolchildren, we advised schools to remain closed for today and tomorrow. The situation worsened because of the ruptured Badshahpur drain around 4 pm, which impacted Rajiv Chowk and Subhash Chowk and later affected NH8 too. Surprisingly, the drains had been desilted for the first time in 25 years, and we were all prepared for heavy showers.” 

Gurgaon Police have issued an advisory asking people from Delhi to not travel to the city. As an added precaution, Section 144 of the CrPC has been issued in Gurgaon, prohibiting the assembly of more than 10 people at a public place.