NEW DELHI: All traffic arrangements at the ongoing India International Trade Fair went haywire on the first Sunday since the event began on November 14 as around 6-lakh visitors thronged the sprawling Pragati Maidan complex.

As a result, all major routes around Pragati Maidan, including the busy Ring Road, entire ITO, Mathura Road, Tilak Marg and Bhairon Marg remained clogged with vehicles for hours in the evening.

The failure of the Delhi traffic police and the trade fair authorities to anticipate the huge rush of visitors over the weekend caused major traffic snarls in the area causing great inconvenience to motorists.

Things went out of hands and the traffic police failed miserably to ensure smooth flow of traffic after one carriageway of Bhairon Marg was closed and traffic was not allowed to enter the route from the Ring Road side putting extra vehicular traffic on Ring Road and ITO creating a major traffic bottleneck in the area.

After one stretch of Bhairon Marg was closed around 5 p.m., the traffic jam extended from ITO to Maharani Bagh on Ring Road, while the entire ITO also got chocked as all vehicles coming from South Delhi on Ring Road were diverted to ITO.

This also had a cascading affect on the west carriageway of Old ITO bridge, badly affecting movement of traffic on Vikas Marg.

Aerial rods

Similarly, jams were also seen on Bahadurshah Zafar Marg, Mathura Road, Tilak Marg and aerial rods around India Gate.

Such was the rush that the authorities had to close entry to visitors around 3-30 p.m. for a while. "On Sunday, around 6-lakh people from Delhi and satellite townships visited Pragati Maidan.

In the evening, when trade fair visitors started to leave for their homes, it caused major pedestrian influx on roads, particularly Mathura Road and Bhairon Marg.

"As footpaths are not very spacious, we had to block one way of Bhairon Marg to allow safe pedestrian movement. Similarly, traffic was also hit on Mathura Road due to the same reason," said a senior Delhi traffic police officer.

Railway passengers

However, people were not satisfied with the traffic arrangements and also faced problems in parking and availing of free park-and-ride facilities. Several railway passengers who had to catch train from New Delhi and Old Delhi railway stations in the evening were also caught unawares due to massive traffic jams.

"All tall claims of the traffic police and trade fair organisers of having made unprecedented traffic arrangements proved mere rhetoric as people were caught in long jams. It took me over an hour to reach New Delhi railway station from Patparganj in the evening as the Old ITO bridge was chocked with vehicles and a skeleton thin traffic staff was managing it," claimed software engineer Deepak Kumar.

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