Commuters in Central Delhi struggled to make their way through dense vehicular traffic resulting from diversions put in place to aid processions commemorating the martyrdom of Sikh Guru Teg Bahadur throughout Monday.
Massive congestion crippled traffic around arterial Central Delhi routes such as Parliament Street, Janpath, Mandi House, Jawaharlal Nehru Marg and the India Gate among others.
“Most congestion seemed to be due to the diversions and not because of the procession per se,” said Atul Mahajan, 35, a private executive. “I got stuck at the Ferozeshah Road roundabout for half an hour and there was no traffic policeman in sight,” he complained.
Most commuters complained they were stuck at Central Delhi roundabouts where there was no deployment of traffic police personnel to guide or assist motorists.
“There was no one willing to help motorists like me; congestion could have been controlled had the traffic police continued with deployment at roundabouts like they usually do. There was four-lane traffic on small roads which can barely manage two-lane traffic on normal days,” said Kanika Narayan, 25, a gym instructor.
On their part, the traffic police claimed there was adequate deployment in place. According to them, the traffic in Central Delhi was a spill-over from adjacent Pragati Maidan from where visitors continued to originate in hordes.
“We had deployed personnel at locations where congestion was most likely to occur such as Parliament Street, Baba Kharak Singh Marg and Gole Market,” said a traffic police officer.
“Commuters had already been advised about traffic diversions and no special concessions were made for any commuter or VIP. Our priority was the management of the function and vehicles on adjacent routes till a little over 10-30 p.m., when the processions were supposed to reach their destination,” the officer added.
