Hyderabad, September 26: It took 14 agonising hours for RTC bus passengers, who left Vijayawada at 10 last night, to reach Hyderabad.
Their agony can be gauged from the fact that it took them nearly five hours to cover just a 25-km stretch between Chityal and Choutuppal as the bus crawled closer to the city.
This harrowing tale was aptly narrated by a regular commuter, M Srinivas, who was caught in one of the traffic jams on the National Highway-9 last night.
“I boarded an RTC bus at Vijayawada at 10 pm yesterday for my return journey to Hyderabad after spending a day with my parents in Vijayawada. The bus, which had been cruising at a slow speed till then, came to a complete stop at Chityala. I looked at the watch and it was 4 am. Usually, the Hyderabad- Vijayawada night journey takes 6 hours and the bus should have reached Hyderabad by then. But the small delay was okay considering the bad condition of the road. But the bus did not move an inch forward even for an hour. I realised then that we were caught in a traffic jam. We came to know that two trucks had collided with each other, holding up traffic for long distances on either side.
“Around 5 am, after what seemed an eternity, the bus slowly left Chityala but our ordeal did not end there. Vehicles were literally inching their way in a bumper-to-bumper movement. It took us five excruciating hours to reach Choutuppal which is just 25 km from Chityal.
“An elderly woman and the 10- month-old grandchild she was carrying seemed the worst sufferers. The bus was running way behind schedule and the driver did not entertain any plea for stopping the bus at Choutuppal for the woman to answer nature’s call or buy milk for the child.
“Policemen were rushed to clear the mess but the unruly truck drivers, in their eagerness to overtake others and make up for the lost time, compounded the traffic woes.
The NH-9 was dug on the two sides for widening, making it narrower and congested. After Choutuppal the driver did not stop the bus anywhere and it was noon when the bus reached the bus station in Hyderabad.’’ It was the third time in the last two months that traffic jam occurred on the busiest highway in the state.
–Agencies