Chennai: Already notorious for traffic jams due to narrow roads, R K Nagar, the cynosure of all eyes, is facing severe traffic disruptions due to heavy movement of VVIPs and state minister convoys. Campaigns and periodic sorties of candidates had not spared even the interior roads admit local residents and motorists.
According to traffic police sources, the vehicle pressure is high along the entire Thiruvottiyur high road, cemetery road, Cochrane Basin Road and Elayamuthu Mudali street due to the campaign and the ongoing bridge work. Two bridge works, one at Karaneswararar Nagar near the Korukhupet railway station and another causeway coming up near Ezhil Nagar is also adding to the traffic bottle necks, sources said.
“The multi cornered contest has made several political parties and the three AIADMK factions to open more temporary election offices. There are eight congested wards coming under RK Nagar and all the ward secretaries of the major parties have opened therthal panimanai's, choking the interior roads.
Besides, there are headquarter election offices at Thiruvottriyur high road, where party star campaigners and leaders throng with their big sports utility vehicles and supporters”, explained a corporation official serving in the RK Nagar poll office. To reduce congestion campaign permit is given only to a particular candidate at a particular stretch at a particular time, even then the narrow roads get clogged, the official said, adding that through rough estimates and going by the CCTV camera footage, at least three hundred to four hundred vehicles, mostly SUVs and autos, zip through RK Nagar and there are another 100 vehicles of the police, corporation and paramilitary force partly eating into road space, the official added.
When contacted Abhay Kumar Singh, additional commissioner of police (traffic) admitted heavy traffic congestion in R K Nagar due to multiple reasons. “We have pressed additional police force to regulate the traffic and senior officers are also attending to it. But the narrow roads, pending bridgeworks and poll campaign, are adding to the congestion. However, traffic arrangements will be reviewed for better results”, the top official said.
“My office is at Fort St Glacis near Islands ground and usually it takes half an hour for me to reach home at Washermenpet, but now it takes more than an hour. Traffic is worse during weekends due to the campaign. We cancelled the family dinner last Sunday,” rued K Dhinakar, a defence staff and a resident of Washermenpet.
