Ghaggar bridge under repair; traffic on Chandigarh-Ambala side affected

With one side of the Ghaggar bridge in Bhankharpur under repair, traffic snarls made life miserable for commuters on the Chandigarh-Ambala National Highway since Sunday morning.

Long queues of vehicles were seen stretching up to the McDonald's light point on the Zirakpur side and up to Mubarikpur on the Dera Bassi side for most of the day.

People were stuck in their vehicles in sweltering heat on both sides of the bridge on the National Highway as repair work has hardly left any space for the vehicles to pass through it. "One of the expansion joint broke after a bridge span sunk. It has been two days since the work is going on and it might take some more time," said a civil engineer at the site.

The traffic is now being diverted through the Ambala-Chandigarh side of the bridge, leading to a bottleneck here.

Traffic police and SSF has been deputed to regulate the movement of vehicles but with very limited success. Zirakpur traffic in-charge Harkesh Singh said, "NHAI and contractor have been informed and repair work is underway. Police is doing its level best to manage the situation."

This is for the second time the bridge has been damaged since 2016. At present, the Zirakpur-Ambala side of the traffic passes through the old bridge while the Ambala-Zirakpur side is catered by a new bridge built during the four-laning of the National Highway.