Heavy rush of tourists at Sinhagad fort, traffic snarls for 5 hours
There had been huge lines of vehicles and traffic congestion from the Khandakwasla reservoir to the fort top since the morning on Sunday
Pune
The onset of the monsoon has resulted in a large influx of tourists to Sinhagad fort and other surrounding tourist destinations such as Panshet dam and Khadakwasla dam chowpatty. There had been huge lines of vehicles and traffic congestion from the Khandakwasla reservoir to the fort top since the morning on Sunday.
However, this resulted in massive traffic congestion in the nearby areas as many struggled to navigate their vehicles through the snarls.
Amol Pol, a travel enthusiast, was disappointed to be trapped in traffic for more than five hours on Sunday after visiting the Sinhagad fort with his family.
“From 11 am to 4 pm, we were stuck in traffic trying to get down from the fort to the Khadakwasla dam chowpatty. We were unable to navigate through the ghat section as vehicles going in the other direction were moving slowly owing to the narrow roads,” Pol explained.
According to the forest department, there has been an increase in the number of tourists visiting the Sinhagad fort since last month, especially on weekends. The number of visitors has steadily gone up every weekend in June as the rains have just begun. On Sunday, the historic monument again witnessed huge footfall with 1,961 two-wheelers and 495 four-wheelers making their way to the top of the fort.
“There was a heavy traffic jam in the ghat section on Sunday, so we had to allow vehicles to move in slots. We had volunteers stationed at various points to clear the vehicles, and some of the vehicles were diverted via Kondhanpur Road,” said Sandip Koli, a forest department guard at Sinhagad fort.
As thousands of tourists flocked to the Sinhagad fort on Sunday, there was a 5- to 6-hour traffic bottleneck from the Khadakwasla dam, Donje village, and the ghat area of the Sinhagad fort.
