Commuters still face traffic issues on Ghaziabad-Delhi highway

Ghaziabad, Jan 6 (IANS) Vehicular movement was restored on National Highway-24 (NH-24) leading to the national capital but commuters continued to face traffic issues Tuesday.

NH-24 connects national capital Delhi to Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow via Ghaziabad.

A National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) official said leakage from a pipeline (Ganga water supply pipeline) running parallel to NH-24 caused a part of the road to cave-in near here.

The road was repaired Monday by filling in the cavity with bricks, concrete and mud. But the complete repair would take time and NHAI engineers plan to work during the night when traffic movement becomes thin.

"Yesterday it was a temporary repair of the road. The complete repair would be carried out Tuesday night when the traffic movement would become thin. The commuters had to face a day's problem. The road would be ready to carry all types of vehicles Wednesday onwards. Heavy vehicles were restrained from plying on the road Tuesday," said A.K. Bhadoria, executive engineer in the Public Works Department (PWD).

Meanwhile, Ganga water treatment plant project engineer R.K. Agrawal lodged a police complaint where he stated that the patrolling staff had reported to him that they found a square valve of the pipeline open near the Hindon bridge in Ghaziabad.

Earlier Monday, huge traffic jams were witnessed on NH-24 and NH-58, inconveniencing a large number of commuters bound for Delhi from Ghaziabad, Noida, Hapur and Meerut.

With increasing pressure on NH-24, the police diverted the traffic towards NH-58.

NH-58 links Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh with the state of Uttarakhand.

Since the cave-in occurred during peak hours Monday the traffic jam stretched to seven km.

The traffic jam started at 8.00 a.m. The situation returned to normal by 6.00 p.m. after teams from the Jal Nigam, the municipal corporation and the PWD repaired the road.