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Traffic eases on Chandigarh’s Madhya Marg as key road reopens in Mauli Jagran
Road towards Shastri Nagar bridge over Sukhna Choe also likely to be reopened today; several arterial roads around Madhya Marg were damaged in the heavy rains over the weekend
After two days of major snarls on Madhya Marg, due to damage to arterial roads, vehicle movement improved considerably on Thursday after the road on both sides of the railway under bridge (RUB) in Mauli Jagran was reopened after repairs.
While the route from Hallomajra towards Panchkula via the RUB was opened for traffic around 12 pm, the other side of the road, connecting Panchkula, Baltana, Raipur Rani and Vikas Nagar to Mauli Jagran and Hallomajra, was opened around 1.45 pm.
This reduced the traffic congestion considerably on Madhya Marg that for the past two days was the only route available to enter Chandigarh from Panchkula.
The situation arose after four key bridges over Sukhna Choe, including Kishangarh, Shastri Nagar, Makhan Majra and CTU workshop, Industrial Area, Phase 1, were damaged due to continuous release of water from the regulator end gates of Sukhna Lake amid the heavy rains over the weekend.
Earlier on Thursday, office-goers were once again stuck in massive traffic jams till 11.30 am on the stretch from Housing Board light point near Manimajra till Transport light point near Sector 26.
Ambulances were seen struggling to find a way through the bottleneck along with an army vehicle.
“Travelling to Chandigarh has been a nightmare for the past three days. It takes me a maximum of 25 minutes to reach my office in Sector 8, Chandigarh, daily, but due to the overloaded Madhya Marg these days, it takes two hours to cover the same route, which is quite frustrating,” said Neelam Sharma of Sector 7, Panchkula.
DSP (Traffic) Jaswinder Singh said the traffic movement became better in the afternoon due to immense efforts of the public health department and road wing of the UT engineering department to repair the roads around the Mauli Jagran RUB.
“We are hopeful of opening a road towards Shastri Nagar bridge on Friday afternoon that will further improve vehicle movement from Mansa Devi Complex, IT Park and northern sectors of the city,” the DSP added.
