The blaze in a GAIL pipeline near Sri Venkateshwara College led to a massive jam on Friday morning. The fire-fighting operation led to a gridlock at Dhaula Kuan, Rao Tula Ram Marg and the National Highway-8.
The traffic police put the 6-km stretch from Rao Tula Ram Marg to Benito Juarez Marg out of bounds and diverted traffic to adjacent routes. This had a ripple effect on vehicular movement headed here from South Delhi and neighbouring Gurgaon, and especially left stranded commuters en route the airport.
“It took over an hour to make way from my residence in Dwarka to my office in Connaught Place,” complained Ragini Sharma, 35, who is employed at a private firm.
“While the traffic police were deployed along the route, they were only interested in quickly diverting traffic to adjacent routes without suggesting alternate directions,” she added.
According to drivers like Rajat Anand, the resulting congestion had commuters in a fix till evening with many arterial routes such as the outer Ring Road and Mathura Road being affected.
