Vehicular movement on Delhi’s roads was disrupted from early Thursday as continued overnight showers, which turned into a heavy downpour in the morning, left several arterial roads waterlogged and stranded officegoers during the morning rush hour.
The Delhi Traffic Police said they received at least 12 calls related to traffic jams on more than 10 stretches across the city.
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Among the worst affected were the stretch from Ghazipur to the Delhi-Meerut Expressway and National Highway 9 (NH 9), Mehrauli-Badarpur Road near Okhla Mor, the stretch from Nehru Place to Chirag Delhi, roads in Delhi Cantonment near Dhaula Kuan and Mahipalpur, and most stretches in Dwarka.
“The Delhi-Meerut Expressway and its parallel NH-9 route is a lifeline for tens of thousands of residents of Ghaziabad and Meerut working in Delhi and Gurugram. But on Thursday morning, it took me one-and-a-half hours to reach India Gate from Indirapuram in Ghaziabad, which is usually a 40-minute drive,” said Shubham Kumar, a government employee.
Besides the Ghazipur border, waterlogging was reported from Pandav Nagar underpass, Anand Vihar-Dilshad Garden flyover, the underpass near Anand Vihar railway station, and near Geeta Colony crematorium.
Additional commissioner of police (traffic) Dinesh Kumar Gupta, said: “Personnel were deployed in sufficient numbers on the roads from where waterlogging and traffic jams were reported. We worked with the civic agencies to clear waterlogged stretches using pumps.”