Nagpur: Traffic congestion has worsened on Old Bhandara Road after the Public Works Department (PWD) resumed its long-pending road widening project on the busy three-km corridor commercial corridor between Mayo Hospital and Sunil Hotel.Work underway between Bhagwaghar Chowk and Ganjakhet Square has narrowed the carriageway, with dug-up portions and barricades creating bottlenecks and forcing two-way traffic through single-lane sections. The stretch witnesses heavy vehicular and pedestrian movement throughout the day.“There are multiple dug-up patches obstructing traffic. Since narrow stretches are carrying vehicles from both directions, congestion has become routine. Whenever an autorickshaw or car approaches from the opposite side, the entire stretch gets choked. There are neither traffic police nor marshals to manage the situation,” said local resident Zaid Qureshi.“We do not know when the project will be completed. The PWD should expedite the work and take steps to minimise inconvenience to motorists,” he said.A senior PWD official said some disruption was inevitable as the existing road was narrow, but added that encroachments remained the biggest obstacle to the project.“We have started work on only a one-km stretch. The NMC is yet to clear encroachments along the remaining section. Once that is done, we will be able to take up the pending work,” the official said.The Rs70-crore project, covering civil and electrical works, was awarded in September 2021. It involves widening the road from Mayo Hospital to Sunil Hotel, with the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) tasked with removing encroachments.Under the plan, the stretch from Mayo Hospital to Baghdadi Square will be widened to 18 metres, while the section from Baghdadi Square to Sunil Hotel will be expanded to 30 metres. The project aims to ease congestion and improve connectivity along the corridor.Qureshi pointed out that widening work has yet to begin beyond Ganjakhet Square despite that section being included in the project.The PWD official said the project is expected to take another six months to complete, with delays in encroachment removal continuing to hamper progress.For now, commuters continue to bear the brunt of the work, with barricades and narrowed road space turning the already busy corridor into a daily bottleneck.
