Techies working in the Rajiv Gandhi IT park in Hinjewadi received a pleasant surprise when they left home for office recently. They found the harrowing bottleneck at the flyover at Wakad Phata had disappeared. For techies, harassed by mindboggling jams every day, the ray of hope came when the city police traffic branch began implementing a new traffic plan in the area.
The new traffic plan, as a part of which, the movement of heavy vehicles has been banned on the flyover, is being implemented during peak morning and evening hours on an experimental basis for a fortnight.
The plan has been prepared after studying traffic situation in the area. The traffic police have also taken into consideration, opinions of officials from Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC), Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) and Hinjewadi Industries Association (HIA) on the issue.
According to the plan, entry of all vehicles going from Hinjewadi towards Wakad has been banned on the Wakad Phata flyover from 8am to 10pm. Entry of company buses and heavy vehicles will be banned on the Shivaji Chowk- Hinjewadi- Wakad Chowk- Wakad village route from 6 pm to 8 pm. All company buses plying to and from IT park must proceed via Shivaji chowk- Bhumkar Wasti-Kala Khadak route or Mezzanine-Maruti T Junction-Bhumkar Wasti-Kala Khadak.
Traffic police inspector (administration) Vijaykumar Palsule told DNA, “There are many companies in IT park and they have a large number employees. To worsen the situation, the quantum of traffic is very high as people are forced to use private vehicles due to lack of adequate public transport. To add to it all, the roads are narrow. As a result, the commuters are using Wakad Chowk and Shivaji Chowk to use the Mumbai-Bangalore highway. Moreover, the flyover is not wide enough to accommodate all vehicular movements and clogging at the flyover results in snarls in the
entire area."
