Commuters sweat on a cold day, NH48 tailback stretches for miles

The checkpoints, put up at Sirhaul toll plaza on the four-lane carriageway that leads to Delhi, ensued the worst traffic jam in three years, second only to the infamous “Gurujam” of July 2016.

Thousands of commuters, office goers and airline passengers were stuck for up to nine hours on Thursday while travelling from Gurugram to Delhi on the National Highway 48 as Delhi Police set up barricades to stop protesters from reaching planned demonstrations against new citizenship law in Delhi.

School buses stuck in heavy traffic jam at Delhi-Gurugram expressway, Sirhaul border, in Gurugram (Parveen Kumar/Hindustan Times)

The checkpoints, put up at Sirhaul toll plaza on the four-lane carriageway that leads to Delhi, ensued the worst traffic jam in three years, second only to the infamous “Gurujam” of July 2016, when commuters were stuck on the road for 20 hours and authorities were forced to effect major changes in infrastructure and planning.

Between 8am and 1pm, the traffic tailback extended for around 6km– from the Sirhaul toll plaza to Signature Tower. In 2016, heavy showers and a poor drainage system had choked NH48, which is used by an estimated 3 lakh people daily.

Gurugram Police blamed their Delhi counterparts, saying they had been kept in the dark until 7.30am on Thursday, about an hour after the barricades were put up, and added that they could have diverted traffic if warned in advance. In response, Delhi Police said they were trying to stop miscreants from fomenting trouble at demonstrations .

From early morning till about 4pm, vehicles were allowed to pass through, one at a time, on one lane of the main carriageway, while the service lane remained shut. From 8am onwards, once peak-hour traffic began, the traffic quickly piled up. The spillover of the congestion was felt on other approach roads from Gurugam to Delhi, especially MG Road, where commuters were stuck for over an hour in some stretches.

Rajeev Ranjan, a resident of Sector 28 in Gurugram, missed his flight to Chandigarh after being stuck at the toll plaza for nearly four hours. He had to book an evening train later.

“I prefer to take a flight to Chandigarh instead of travelling by road or trains as my in-laws stay in Mohali, close to the airport. I had a flight around noon and left home around 9.30am. I was stuck at Iffco Chowk for nearly one hour. I realised that there was no way I could proceed ahead and decided to turn back. I made a reservation on the evening Shatabdi (Express) and took the Delhi Metro to reach New Delhi Railway Station, as the traffic had still not improved around 3pm,” said Ranjan.

“I left home at 9.45am this morning for CP after checking the traffic status on Google maps since I was aware of the fact that there were protests planned throughout the city. Once I saw how badly choked NH-8 was, I decided to take MG road instead. To my surprise, the traffic had spilled onto all the interior roads of Gurgaon connecting MG road and NH-8. No traffic policeman could be seen. After 4 hours we reached the Delhi/Gurgaon barricade (on MG road) where vehicles were passing in a single lane, without even being checked. We took nearly 3 hours to cover a 4km stretch, a commute which normally takes about 45 minutes,” said Captain Siddarth Kadan, a Gurugram resident .

A number of flight crews and attendants were also stuck in the jam, which led to the cancellation of 19 flights.

Nikhil Aggarwal, a Gurugram resident, said he reached Shankar Chowk around 8am, but crossed over to Delhi only by 1pm. “There was no movement of vehicles for long durations. People started to switch off their engines to take a stroll and returned only when they saw the vehicles moving. My vehicle moved at a snail’s pace towards Delhi. I could have crossed the border faster if I just walked the distance,” said Aggarwal, who was heading towards Rajiv Chowk in Delhi.

The barricades were finally removed at 3.45pm, when traffic finally began thinning and the situation gradually returned to normal, by around 5.30pm.

Gurugram traffic police said they were informed too late.

Himanshu Garg, deputy commissioner of police, Gurugram traffic police, said that an alert about the barricading was received around 7.30am.

“We did not get any time to plan rushed our teams. The only thing we could really do was to make people aware of what was happening. So we released advisories asking people to suspend non-essential commute to Delhi. We also set up few points on the expressway, such as Hero Honda Chowk, Kherki Daula toll and Panchgaon Chowk, where police put up barricades and informed people, using loudspeakers, heading towards Delhi to turn back ,” said Garg.

Delhi Police officials said they had received information of citizens being mobilised in large numbers in Haryana. The information was that over 20,000 people were preparing to march towards the national capital to fuel the protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the officials added.

MS Randhawa, spokesperson, Delhi Police, said, “We had informed the Gurugram police of the barricading as a precautionary measure. This would have been a major security breach. Until late night, we were having meetings based on the information that we were receiving and they (Gurugram police) were sent the details immediately.”

Senior Delhi police officials said each vehicle crossing the border was checked to ensure that its occupants were not being ferried across borders to compound the sensitive situation in the national capital.

With the expressway choked, congestion spilt onto other major road networks. Commuters travelling on Mehrauli-Gurgaon (MG) Road, Kapashera and Gurgaon-Faridabad Road were stuck for more than an hour. At the Arjan Garh border, Delhi traffic police also set up barricades, causing congestion on Sunset Boulevard, the stretch used by commuters travelling from Golf Course Road, Golf Course Extension and Gurgaon-Faridabad Road towards MG Road.

(with inputs from Soumya Pillai)