GURUGRAM: The virtues of beginning a work day on a positive note have been analysed and emphasised over and over in self-help books. Making Mondays positive, 9am the happiest time of your day, starting the day with good thoughts — how many times have you been informed of the benefits of these?
You’ve probably lost count. What do you do about it? You change things you can control, you self-motivate with small personal targets, think of that well-earned vacation round the corner, and unwinding with friends or family after a satisfying day at work.
But there’s that one big thing you can’t control, which wipes the smile off your face every day.
That gets on your nerves, crawls into all the happy thoughts and spoils the ‘outlook’. The drive to work which, for the bulk of the workforce in NCR, means an address in Gurugram.
Every morning, lakhs of cars head for the Millennium City from Delhi and other parts of NCR, choking all its arteries.
One of those is
Shankar Road, the gateway to
Udyog Vihar, which is home to around 1,500 offices.
Thousands of office-goers waste precious time as traffic crawls from the expressway all the way to their offices in various streets of Udyog Vihar. A large part of this traffic passes through the 4-lane Shankar Road (2 lanes, one way).
The tailback chokes approach roads and the service lanes of the expressway.
At the point where Shankar Road meets the expressway, another huge building is set to open doors soon — the 2.5 million square feet DLF Cyber Park, which will host IT and other offices. The cyber park, which has three towers, is likely to become operational in the next few months.
Right opposite this new building are two luxury hotels and their private security guards frequently halt traffic for guests to move in and out. Even a brief halt leads to a cascading effect and traffic piles up. The situation is particularly bad during the morning and evening office hours.
When Cyber Park opens, the number of motorists headed for Udyog Vihar will see another surge — around 4,000 vehicles and 25,000 people are expected to be headed in and out of the new office building. However, they will do from the service road of the Delhi-Gurugram expressway itself, and not Shankar Road, claim DLF officials.
Civic authorities say the only solution is to widen the existing road and turn it into six lanes. But this will take at least a year.
“Shankar Chowk and Shankar Road are major choke points in the city with traffic volume increasing each day. We have decided to widen the road all the way till Dundahera. The feasibility report is out and it will take about a year to complete this task,” said a senior GMDA official.
GMDA has tried to streamline traffic by placing jersey barriers along the median but people often move these barriers to pass through. A huge peepal tree right in the middle of Shankar Road further down also slows traffic, as does illegal parking along the road side.
Commuters worry if adequate steps are not taken, driving time will soar.
“I have been working in Gurugram for over eight years now and I have seen the traffic scenario deteriorate. The authorities need to take a serious view of the traffic situation,” said Ajit Kumar, an IT professional.
Vehicles ply on a road in Udyog Vihar area during peak hours. (File Photo)
