TIRUPATI: Sri Venkateswara University campus was chock-a-block on Thursday, as students poured in from various schools on the third day of the five-day Indian Science Congress.
After the State government announced to showcase the science jamboree to 25,000 students to kindle scientific temper in them, the Education Department allotted time slots to various schools to visit the Pride of India expo on the campus. Students from districts as far as Visakhapatnam and Guntur came by buses to the expo, which many consider as once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
More than 50,000 students converged on the campus on Thursday, causing heavy traffic jam. As the hundreds of students made a beeline on the narrow roads on the campus, traffic came to a virtual standstill. The campus is already replete with vehicles, including cars, ferrying speakers and delegates between venues for the various sessions, vans carrying groceries and water to the food courts and kitchens, policemen moving for bandobust duty and finally, garbage trucks picking up solid waste out of the campus.
The school buses which converged in large numbers found it difficult to manoeuvre the crowd, thus throwing life out of gear. The civic and police officials, besides the ISCA organising members and volunteers had a tough time in controlling the crowd. In the melee, even the inquisitive students were made to rush through the stalls.
Meanwhile, the traffic police wing came under fire for imposing restrictions on Thursday by obstructing free traffic flow across the city by barricading every junction. “Even after the Prime Minister and Chief Minister had left the city, what is the need for such a harsh step today,” an officer working in a bank located on SVU campus said.
