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Ludhiana: Peace rally becomes headache for commuters; MLA apologises
As the rally was scheduled at peak hours in the afternoon, the traffic blockades were imposed at major traffic points throughout the route - mall road, Bharat Nagar Chowk, bus stand, and Jawahar Nagar in Ludhiana
At a time when traffic congestion at Bharat Nagar Chowk is at an all-time high, the peace marathon carried out by 3,000 students of Government College for Girls to raise awareness about clean environment on Monday further put the residents at the receiving end, prompting the Ludhiana West MLA Gurpreet Gogi, who flagged off the rally, to apologize for the inconvenience caused.
As the marathon was scheduled at peak hours in the afternoon, the traffic blockades were imposed at major traffic points throughout the route - mall road, Bharat Nagar Chowk, bus stand, and Jawahar Nagar. The march started from GCG at mall road and covered areas, including Midda Chowk, Kochar Market and Bharat Nagar Chowk.
The commuters heading from Ferozepur Road, Jagraon bridge and Mall Road were taken for a ride as they remained stuck on the road for over 30 minutes till the rally crossed the busy Bharat Nagar-bus stand lane.
The commuters also included students who were travelling towards their exam centres in two government schools in the Jawahar Nagar area for the class 12 physical education exam.
A number of guardians who were going to drop uniformed students at the exam venues were seen hurriedly making their way towards their destination.
A number of stalls bearing banners of the Aam Aadmi Party also dotted the route to welcome the procession led by Gogi and serve water to the participants.
Sharing the ordeal, Seema Kaushal, a resident, said “Traffic police had itself issued an advisory to avoid this route due to the ongoing construction, but little thought was given about the plight of the commuters before organising the marathon.”
Tejpreet Singh, a resident of Chandan nagar said that he is going to drop his sister at Shaheed Sukhdev Thapar government school but as the traffic has been blocked, he parked his two-wheeler on the road and went by foot to reach the exam centre on time.
He added that as the timing of the march has clashed with the exam time, the students were facing a lot of inconvenience.
The marathon, which was organised between 12pm to 1pm to create awareness regarding environment, drugs, female foeticide and other social issues, was flagged off by Ludhiana West MLA Gurpreet Gogi and Commissioner of Police Mandeep Singh Sidhu.
A senior traffic police official said that traffic was deployed at traffic lights on Mall Road and other traffic points to divert and control the flow of traffic. He added that as the traffic is already running on the slip road due to ongoing construction, the road had to be completely closed to traffic.
MLA calls upon youth to end social maladies
MLA Gurpreet Gogi said there is a need to channelise the productive energy of youth in a positive direction so that they can play a constructive role against several social maladies.
He said that youth must imbibe the ethos of nationalism and service to mankind in their lives which could play an important role in the construction of a harmonious society.
He said that youngsters must come forward to create massive awareness against the use of drugs.
Gogi said he wanted to spread a social message through the marathon and did not intend to cause any inconvenience to the commuters.
“I apologize if the march caused inconvenience to anybody,” Gogi said.
