Bengaluru: Traffic in the city came to a grinding halt in several areas on Tuesday evening as Vice-President Hamid Ansari’s motorcade passed through main roads.
The convoy of Mr Ansari, who is in the city on a three-day official visit since Monday, was moving from Raj Bhavan to Wipro around 4 .15 pm on Tuesday, causing traffic jams all along the way.
Traffic woes for the commuters started around 4 pm and got worse as the evening peak hour traffic started flowing on the roads.
The commuters had to suffer bumper-to-bumper traffic for hours on Cubbon road, M.G. road, 100 Ft Road, Old Airport Road, Koramangala, Silk Board Junction, Anepalya, Adugodi, Dairy Circle and Wipro Junction. Traffic returned to normal only around 9 pm.
Though Bengaluru police had sent out an advisory that traffic in the city would be affected during the movement of Vice-President’s convoy and requested commuters to cooperate, people in the city were not prepared for the massiv traffic jams witnessed on Tuesday evening.
DCP Traffic (East) M.N. Babu Rajendra Prasad said that alternative routes had been planned and traffic diverted, but the volume of vehicles was too high.
“All the traffic officers had been deployed on roads to manage the situation. We had requested people to cooperate with the traffic police as traffic holdups were expected between 4 pm and 5.30 pm on Infantry Road, Cubbon Road, MG Road, Old Airport Road, Inner Ring Road, Koramangala, Hosur Road and Sarjapur Road till Wipro Junction,” he said.
Ms Sheetal Kundra, a resident of Koramangala, said, “It took me nearly an hour to reach Koramangala 5th block from 100 Ft Road – a distance which is easily covered in 15-20 minutes on a normal day.”
Commuters coming from Town Hall Junction to J.C. Road too were stuck for over two hours. Senior police officers were also seen managing the traffic across the city.
