Vehicles wait as rallyist cross a lane at Unit-III Colony. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, Dec. 3: Commuters who use Janpath today faced the same old problem of traffic chaos and kept on moving from one lane to another inside Unit-II and Unit-III till they found a less crowded path to their destination.

To add to the woes of the commuters, the authorities allowed rallies to pass through colony lanes this time. This created more confusion among stranded motorists. Even the residents of these areas had a suffocated day with the roads in front of their houses chocked with vehicles that were constantly honking and moving here and there.

Old Town resident Sushant Rajguru, who was on his way to office at Kharavela Nagar, took a turn into Unit-II Colony when he saw the traffic jam on Janpath because of a rally at Master Canteen Square. But all the roads inside the colony were congested with vehicles stranded and trying to make way ahead.

“I somehow managed to cross Mahatma Gandhi Marg at Lower PMG. When I went towards Keshari talkies, I found the road was congested ahead and all the vehicles were virtually standstill. I immediately took a turn into Unit-III area through a smaller lane, trying to come to the service road in front of the homeopathy college, which is normally used by vehicles during rallies at Master Canteen. But today, this road, too, was crowded. To my utter surprise, I saw a rally coming from Ram Mandir side through a service road behind the Gurudwara. It took me around 45 minutes to come to Kharavela Nagar from Rajmahal Square which should normally take five to seven minutes,” said Rajguru, a private company employee.

As the Mahatma Gandhi Marg was closed for the ongoing Assembly session, commuters and motorists had a hard day to go to their work place as the immediate service roads on both sides of the Mahatma Gandhi Marg were closed when a big rally approached the dharna place. Even the lanes inside the colonies on both sides bore the brunt of the rally as vehicles were stranded on these roads.

Traffic police officials, however, said that they were diverting vehicles wherever there was a need for so.

“As it took the big rally quite sometime to cross the square, the vehicles were stopped on both sides and diverted wherever necessary. We had placed our men at several places for diverting vehicles to avoid the blockade at Master Canteen Square,” said inspector in charge of traffic police station Ranjan Mallick.