World Food India: Heavy traffic at India Gate, avoid central Delhi this weekend

Three-day World Food India 2017 is being organised at India Gate lawns by the ministry of food processing industries. The event is expected to get nearly 2,000 participants from 200 companies spanning 30 countries.

If you are in Delhi this weekend, avoid taking the India Gate C-Hexagon and its radial roads. Delhi traffic police has said that roads in central Delhi are likely to be choked with traffic, at least till Sunday, with mega food festival World Food India 2017 being organised at India Gate lawns.

Office-goers were caught in long traffic jams in central Delhi on Friday morning after the inauguration of the event at Vigyan Bhavan. (Ravi Choudhary / HT Photo)

Office-goers were caught in long traffic jams in central Delhi on Friday morning after the inauguration of the event at Vigyan Bhavan. When contacted, Delhi traffic police advised vehicle owners to steer clear of the stretch till Sunday.

“The India Gate stretch will witness a lot of traffic this weekend because of World Food India 2017 which was inaugurated at Vigyan Bhavan on Friday morning. Due to VIP movement, all roads of India Gate C-Hexagon were closed in the morning. It will take a couple of hours for the traffic to normalise. However, it is best to avoid this stretch from 9am-7pm this weekend,” a traffic police official told Hindustan Times at noon.

As the event kicked off, thousands of commuters had a hard time reaching their destination in Central Delhi. “Bhairon Marg was shut. So it took me 30 minutes to reach ITO from Sarai Kale Khan. All the smaller inside roads also had bumper-to-bumper traffic,” said Nisha Singh, a Noida resident.

Roads leading to India Gate — like Kasturba Gandhi Marg, Ashoka Road, Akbar Road, Shahjahan Road and Dr Zakir Hussain Marg — were either barricaded, as the police diverted traffic away from the festival venue, or had very slow movement.

“It is the regular week day traffic, plus the heavy footfall at the food festival that has led to the congestion. Both vehicular and pedestrian moment are heavy. We had issued an advisory. Traffic police has made additional deployment and local police have also been roped in for traffic duties,” said Joint CP (traffic) Garima Bhatnagar.

Organised by the ministry of food processing industries, the three-day event will host over 2,000 participants from 200 companies spanning 30 countries. Besides representatives of 28 states, 18 ministerial and business delegations, nearly 50 global CEOs along with CEOs of all leading domestic food processing companies are also participating in the event.