Planning to go towards Benz Circle on June 2? Well, you can drop your plans, as it is hosting Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s ‘Nava Nirmana Deeksha’ there.
It is going to be all chaos, as rallies from Bandar Road, Skew Bridge, NTR Circle and Nirmala Convent Junction will be culminating at Benz Circle before the Chief Minister leads the ‘deeksha’.
Mr. Naidu will flag off a rally from Nirmala Convent Junction, and Roads and Buildings Department officials are putting up a dais near the Indian Oil Petrol pump abutting the junction.
“We are making arrangements to accommodate 2,000 people in front of the dais facing the east,” a senior official from the R&B Department said.
While TDP city president Buddha Venkanna claimed that thousands of people would be attending ‘deeksha’, officials said more than 20,000 were likely to participate.
Benz Circle, one of the busiest junctions in the city, has now turned into a major traffic bottleneck, thanks to over 60,000 vehicles coming from all directions.
Traffic snarls are a perennial problem here, as the busy junction is on NH-5 that links Kolkata and Chennai and passes through most coastal towns in nine coastal districts including Nellore, Ongole, Chilakaluripet, Guntur, Vijayawada, Eluru, Rajahmundry and Visakhapatnam. Krishna Collector Babu A. said the Chief Minister would deliver his speech between 9.30 a.m. and 10 a.m., and that it would be followed by a felicitation of eminent personalities who took part in the ‘Samaikyandhra’ agitation.
Apart from Ministers and senior officials, as many as 300 employees from various departments in the Secretariat will also attend.
City Police Commissioner A.B. Venkateswara Rao said traffic restrictions would be imposed at the venue to avoid inconvenience to people attending the meeting. “We will impose regulations for three hours from morning,” he said.
According to Mr. Rao, vehicles coming from Hyderabad will be diverted at Ibrahimpatnam, while those from Eluru will be diverted at Hanuman Junction.
Vehicles coming from Guntur will be diverted at Kanakadurga Varadhi.
