Massive traffic snarls returned on Gurgaon roads on the first Monday after the two-week vehicle rationing experiment ended on January 15, prompting many on social media to link the chaos with the odd-even formula.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was scheduled to chair a meeting later in the day to review the performance of the Beijing-inspired plan – both for its impact on pollution levels as well as on traffic.
Gurgaon’s NH-8 and the Gurgaon-Delhi Expressway witnessed a massive traffic jam which went crawling upto Huda City Centre, Cyber City, Udyog Vihar and Sohna Road. Massive tailbacks were also seen at Iffco Chowk, Signature Tower, Huda City Centre and the old Delhi-Gurgaon Road. Kunal Dua, a daily commuter tweeted that it took him two and a half hours to travel from Noida to Gurgaon, which usually takes him around one and a half hour, because of slow moving traffic at the Iffco Chowk and Cyber Hub.
The number of cars on the streets was visibly more than during the past fortnight when the odd-even plan was in force. The checkpost at the Mehrauli-Gurgaon road after Guru Dronacharya Metro station came to a standstill as 50 per cent of the officer-goers from Gurgaon used the road to go towards Delhi.
Hundreds of school buses also returned on Monday. The Delhi government had extended school holidays during the odd-even trial.
Pollution data by various monitoring agencies showed that the air quality improved in the second week of January compared to the first week of 2016. Experts say a fall in the wind speed and higher humidity were responsible for the increase in the concentration of pollutants.