Cars crawled, bikes negotiated the smallest gaps and commuters jostled for space.
This was the scene at Bistupur-Station Road on Monday morning, as some 35 mini-bus operators staged a blockade at Jugsalai roundabout to protest against the alleged high-handedness of traffic police.
Bus operators alleged the police had fined them exorbitantly over the weekend - Rs 2,000 each - for illegal parking.
But, police said the buses stopped arbitrarily everywhere to pick up passengers, forcing them to clamp heavy fines to discourage the practice.
Jamshedpur Mini-bus Owners' Association president Chandra Mohan Prasad said traffic policemen imposing fines of Rs 2,000 each for wrong parking in Jugsalai or near the station. "Paying so much money for wrong parking is beyond the means of mini-bus operators. That's why we are forced to set up the blockade as a mark of protest," said Prasad.
But, DSP (traffic) Vivekanand Thakur said they had been imposing penalty to streamline city traffic. "Illegal parking is the main reason for traffic congestion. We will continue to impose the fines unless the mini-bus operators follow our directive," Thakur added.
Staged from 10.30am, the blockade continued for over an hour. Commuters, especially office-goers, were worst hit.
The mini-bus operators were joined by a section of school van and autorickshaw drivers, making traffic come to a standstill on the main artery of the steel city.
"The blockade had been set up at such point where there is no bypass. On top of that, the timing of the protest was brilliant. I was stuck in the jam for about an hour," said Santosh Pradhan, a Sonari resident who works in a private insurance company in Parsudih.
Vehicular flow became normal when a team from Jugsalai thana along with traffic policemen arrived at the spot and persuaded the protesters to lift the blockade.
During the talks that followed, it was decided that mini-bus operators would henceforth not stop vehicles randomly to pick up passengers, but do so from designated halts only.
DSP Thakur and members of Jamshedpur Mini-bus Owners' Association carried out a survey of possible stops between Tatanagar and Bistupur. The traffic DSP said they earmarked about half-a-dozen stoppages between the station and Bistupur. "Soon we will identify more halts across all the 17 routes," he added.
Bus association president Prasad said since there had agreed with the traffic police, they would not park at random places anymore.
Altogether, 120 mini-buses ply on 17 separate routes from 6am to 10pm daily. Of these, 47 mini-buses operate on the Station-Bistupur route.
