The first day of the New Year brought Bhopal to a virtual standstill as unprecedented traffic congestion paralyzed large parts of the city on Thursday. Massive crowds heading out for sightseeing and temple visits overwhelmed the major arterial roads, leading to hours-long snarls that stretched well into the evening.
Epicenter of Chaos: The Boat Club Stretch
The situation was most critical around the Boat Club area, which witnessed the worst gridlock. Traffic jams in this zone persisted until 8:30 pm, causing immense inconvenience. The chaos began building up from 1 pm as a flood of vehicles inundated routes connecting Banganga to Polytechnic Square, Kamla Park, and Retghat. These corridors, already busy on normal days, were completely overwhelmed, with the congestion spilling over into the entire Shyamla Hills locality.
City-Wide Ripple Effect and Temple Traffic
The impact was not confined to one area. Long, crawling lines of vehicles stretched from Kamla Park, Polytechnic Square, and Banganga towards Retghat, keeping traffic officers on their toes for hours. The backups soon extended to other crucial intersections including the K N Pradhan trisection, Machhli Ghar, Raj Bhavan trisection, and Jehangirabad, with movement remaining sluggish until late evening.
Religious sites were major contributors to the congestion. Birla Mandir was swamped by devotees, with parked vehicles lining up from Patrakar Bhavan to Vidhan Sabha bounds, severely choking traffic flow. Similar scenes of roadside chaos unfolded at Kali Mata Mandir in Talaiya and along the route to Bhojpur Mandir.
Police Response to Holiday Exodus
Commenting on the challenging situation, Additional DCP (Traffic) Basant Kaul stated that the holiday exodus significantly spiked traffic loads across multiple spots, with the Boat Club stretch from Polytechnic Square to Akashwani trisection, Banganga, Machhli Ghar, and Kamla Park being the hardest hit. He acknowledged the extremely high traffic load but confirmed that traffic police officials and personnel remained deployed throughout to regulate and manage the mess. "The traffic load was extremely high. Traffic police officials and personnel remained deployed to regulate and manage traffic," Kaul said.
