Surajkund block: motorists upset

Ravi Ranjan (37) left for work on 7 am at Thursday. The time he hoped to make it to his Nehru Place office — less than 20 kms away from his Surajkund home — was 9:30 am. Thanks to the traffic restrictions due to the Commonwealth games shooting championship at Dr. Karni Singh shooting range near Tughlaqabad, Ranjan, a human resource consultant, and many other commuters like him, have had a nightmarish stint with traffic the last couple of days.

On Wednesday, Ranjan was among thousands of people living in the upmarket colonies of Charmwood village, Green Field and residential apartments near Surajkund, who were caught off guard due to closure of the Surajkund Road.

The Delhi traffic police had closed the road, which connects Surajkund in Faridabad with the Mehrauli - Badarpur Road in Delhi, on Wednesday morning to provide more security to the shooting range, the venue for the Commonwealth shooting championship.

The five-kilometre Surajkund Road stretch is used by those who live near Surajkund or want to avoid Badarpur Border, which remains clogged due to the construction of a flyover and a metro line.

Lack of Coordination

“The traffic restrictions were put in place by Delhi traffic police without any information to us,” said Raj Kumar, assistant commissioner of police (traffic), Faridabad.

“We were left with no option but to divert traffic from Surajkund round about towards Prahladpur,” Kumar added.

The traffic restriction will remain in place from 7 am to 6 pm on the Surajkund Road till February 28.

Delhi traffic police officers agreed that there was a “small lapse” in issuing an advisory tand “coordination issue” with the Faridabad traffic police.

“But a few things (regarding the traffic plan) were finalised only at the last minute,” joint commissioner of police (traffic) Satyendra Garg said.

Lessons learnt

Garg said the traffic police in Delhi reinforced its arrangements to ensure that the motorists were not inconvenienced. Many traffic policemen were deployed at congestion points to guide motorists.

“Though the volume of traffic was high, the situation was much improved because the traffic management was better and the motorists were also informed,” Garg said.