Sunday evening saw a massive increase in vehicles which moved in serpentine queues at entry points to the city and different highways passing through as people returned home after the long Diwali break.
The city traffic police said vehicles were moving in long queues on the Katraj-Dehu Road bypass, Ahmednagar Road, Pune-Satara Road and Pune-Paud Road.
However, there were no traffic snarls, just that vehicles moved at snail’s pace.
Inspector Rajkumar Shere (traffic) told TOI, “All roads leading to Pune city from other cities or districts, including Mumbai, Konkan, Satara, Kolhapur, Ahmednagar and others, saw a sudden surge of vehicles after 4pm on Sunday”. Educational institutions and offices opened on Monday after the Diwali vacations. “Puneites who had gone away on vacations returned home on Sunday and braced themselves for routine lives from Monday.”
A resident of Narhe told TOI, “There were long queues of vehicles moving slowly towards Navale bridge from the new Katraj tunnel.”Speaking to TOI, Ananda Nalawade of Nanded City said, “We took about 40 minutes from Khed-Shivapur to Navale bridge, a journey which usually takes only 15 minutes.”
Shere said the situation returned to normal around 9pm on Sunday.
