Delhi crawls on New Year as revellers, protest lead to jams across arteries

Traffic police officers at India Gate said there were 200,000 visitors in the area at any given point of time throughout the day. The numbers may have doubled in the evening

Residents of Delhi and adjoining satellite towns who stepped out of their homes on Sunday to celebrate the New Year were stuck on the road for hours because of heavy traffic in parts of the city, especially in the New Delhi area-- the C Hexagon and roundabouts near India Gate. The main reason, traffic police said, was a protest staged by members of the Jain community against the Jharkhand government for turning a pilgrimage site into a tourist spot. The protesters blocked the India Gate roundabout and demanded to meet President Droupadi Murmu with their complaint. By the evening, police had detained and released some protesters.

Massive traffic jam on Janpath Road in New Delhi on Sunday. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

Another reason was the large number of revellers who visited the India Gate complex. The heavy influx of vehicles and visitors to India Gate prompted police to stop vehicles at Noida Link Road-Vikas Marg intersection towards ITO. Police asked commuters to drive towards Pushta Road and take a detour to enter central Delhi.

“It took me nearly an hour to take a round of the C Hexagon and reach Ashoka Road. Police should have prepared well and diverted vehicles several kilometres before India Gate,” Daljeet Singh, a resident of Amar Colony, said.

Traffic police officers at India Gate said there were 200,000 visitors in the area at any given point of time throughout the day. The numbers may have doubled in the evening, an officer said, attributing the spike to the monument being reopened only a few months ago after being closed for almost two years. Kartavya Path, earlier named Rajpath, was opened on September 9.

Delhi-Mathura road in front of the Delhi Zoo witnessed a similar situation as well. Most people stuck on the road complained about the jam on social media. One user also shared a photograph of a vehicle parked on the footpath, which obstructed traffic.

Officials at Delhi Zoo said they recorded 24,160 visitors on Sunday --- a substantial increase from the daily footfall in December. Between December 1 and December 29, the zoo recorded a little over 204,000 visitors – an average footfall of 7,000 visitors per day. The highest-ever footfall recorded in a single day at the Delhi Zoo was 37,800 visitors on January 1, 2019. “We generally see our highest footfall of the year on January 1 and since it was a Sunday as well, the crowds were immense. Adequate staff was available to facilitate the entry of visitors while ensuring social distancing,” a zoo official said.

Among the visitors was 23-year-old Aashna Desai, who was visiting the zoo with her college friends. “Since it was a holiday, we decided to go to the Delhi Zoo and then to Sunder Nursery. It took us a while to get in as there was a lot of crowd outside,” she said.

In other parts of the city too, police personnel were engaged in managing traffic the whole day. One such stretch was the Noida Link road outside Akshardham Temple. Rohit Golcha, who was on his way to Connaught Place in the evening, said, “It was a mistake to drive to CP today (Sunday). The GPS showed 20 minutes to cross this flyover (Aksharsham flyover on Noida Link road). On Sundays, it takes less than a minute. I can see the cars parked outside the Akshardham temple from the flyover. It looks like the whole city has come to visit the temple.”

The Delhi Metro too was equally crowded, with visuals emerging on social media of jam-packed Metro stations. Over 3.5 million passengers are expected to have utilised the Delhi Metro on Sunday, according to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation. “On Sundays, the average ridership is generally between 3 to 3.5 million. While there is temporary crowding at some stations, the ridership on January 1 in the past has not been too high, as schools and offices are both closed. Average ridership is generally around 5 million on working days,” said a DMRC spokesperson.

Late Sunday evening, there was another traffic bottleneck reported to the police helpline after the Ashram flyover was shut around 7pm. While police had issued an advisory, informing people about the closure and asking them to take alternative routes, thousands of commuters were caught unawares in the serpentine traffic jam around 8pm from the Lajpat Nagar flyover near the Gupta market bus stop to the Ashram intersection. The closure of the flyover also caused traffic on the Barapullah flyover(Baba Banda Singh Bahadur Setu) because most commuters opted to use the flyover to enter DND and go to Noida. The Ashram flyover is an important stretch which connects south Delhi with DND Flyway that ultimately leads to Noida, Uttar Pradesh. The flyway will be shut for at least 45 days, traffic police said.

Meanwhile, police have been carrying out a special enforcement drive since December 29 to keep traffic violations in check. According to a statement issued by the traffic police, from December 29 to December 31, 3,830 motorists were prosecuted for committing various violations, including 661 motorists for drink driving, 514 for dangerous driving, 186 for driving on the wrong side of the road, 134 for triple riding, and 192 for driving as minors. On New Year’s Eve, 318 motorists were prosecuted for drink driving, compared to 25 motorists in 2021, 19 in 2020 and 299 in 2019.