A truck hitting the divider on Telugu Talli flyover in the early hours and GHMC election campaign by political bigwigs later in the day left the commuters reeling under severe traffic jams in the city on Thursday.
A 10-wheeled truck laden with wheat bags hit the divider on Telugu Talli fly-over at Secretariat end and broke down around 5 a.m. prompting the traffic police to close the fly-over for traffic for over six hours. This threw peak hour morning traffic out of gear in city central parts like Tank Bund, Necklace road, Basheerbagh and Assembly.
Office-goers and children going to school were put to inconvenience as traffic policemen suddenly turned up at both ends of the fly-over not allowing vehicles onto it. People going from central parts of the city to areas like Secunderabad, Musheerabad, Chikkadpally and areas surrounding them had to travel extra kilometres to reach their destinations.
Police criticised
“I was going from Chikkadpally to Secretariat. Forced to take detour, I got caught at Domalguda for over an hour. The traffic police did nothing and remained mute spectators,” Raghu of Musheerabad said. But, the traffic police maintained they had to secure huge cranes from outside to pull the truck which fell on one side. “First we had to take out the wheat bags, sprinkle mud on the oil that spread on the road after leaking from the vehicle and then remove the truck,” the Saifabad traffic police said. The meeting of Congress workers at hockey stadium in Mehdipatnam, addressed by Chief Minister, K. Rosaiah, led to traffic congestion in the area with scores of party workers turning up there in vehicles.
The election meetings held by opposition leader N. Chandrababu Naidu at Sanathnagar in the evening resulted in similar situation on Fatehnagar flyover and connected roads.
