Commuters on the crucial Gurgaon-Delhi Expressway faced a nightmarish ordeal on Thursday, finding themselves trapped in a massive gridlock that rivaled the chaos seen at airports. The arterial road transformed into a virtual parking lot, with vehicles moving at a snail's pace for hours.
Midnight Mayhem on the Expressway
The severe congestion began around midnight on Thursday. A flurry of weddings at hotels and farmhouses located off the expressway was the primary culprit. Cars belonging to wedding guests, particularly from a popular star hotel, spilled onto the service roads and eventually blocked the main carriageway itself. The situation was exacerbated by the complete absence of traffic police personnel on both the Gurgaon and Delhi sides during the initial hours of the chaos.
Commuters reported taking nearly two hours to cover a mere 2-kilometer stretch from the Ambience Mall-Sirhaul border to Rajokri in Delhi. The bumper-to-bumper traffic came to a complete standstill after the toll plaza. Frustrated drivers, with no movement in sight, switched off their engines. Some even abandoned their vehicles and chose to walk.
Helpless Commuters and Failed Helplines
The sense of helplessness was widespread. One commuter, who left his Udyog Vihar office at 9:45 PM, described the scene as unusually severe for that hour. With no police in sight, many dialed the emergency helpline 112. However, calls either went unanswered or failed to connect. One individual stated it took almost ten attempts to get through to the control room.
When contact was finally made, police informed the caller that the jam was due to a wedding at a luxury hotel where guests had parked on the highway. "It was complete chaos from the Delhi-Gurgaon border till this hotel, even around midnight," the commuter added. The gridlock was especially baffling given the heightened security in the capital following Russian President Vladimir Putin's high-profile visit to the IGI Airport just hours earlier.
Denials and Continued Congestion
Police eventually promised action, with an officer assuring that illegally parked cars would be towed and impounded. However, the hotel in question, The Umaro, denied responsibility. A hotel official claimed the parked vehicles belonged to guests attending several other weddings in the vicinity that night.
The traffic woes were not confined to Thursday. On Friday, the expressway continued to crawl at a glacial pace well into the night. Gurgaon traffic officials attributed Friday's congestion to ongoing work by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on the Delhi side of the expressway.
Satyapal Yadav, ACP (Traffic, Highways) in Gurgaon, said senior officers were deployed to clear the traffic after numerous complaints. They contacted Dwarka traffic inspectors and NHAI officials, requesting that work be halted during peak hours. The knock-on effects of the expressway chaos spilled into Gurgaon's internal roads, causing pile-ups in areas like Udyog Vihar due to altered traffic flows.
Delhi traffic officials highlighted the vulnerability of the stretch, noting that even minor disruptions like vehicle breakdowns can cause major choke points. They stated that teams are manually managing congestion, especially on internal roads near farmhouses hosting wedding functions.
