Hemant Singh Rana
It wasn’t a the usual Tuesday for people like me putting up on Madhya Marg as the green corridor made many see red. While the corridor certainly provided a free thoroughfare for people moving to and fro Panchkula and Chandigarh, those living along it were left confused, harassed and caught up in traffic snarls. Many were seen arguing with traffic policemen as they couldn’t reach their respective destinations in time due to several detours.
My ordeal on the route began early morning as I boarded an auto-rickshaw near the Sector 26 police post around 8.30 am with my twin daughters to drop them at their school in Sector 27. The auto-rickshaw driver would have taken a right turn from the Transport light point towards Madhya Marg and reached the school in five minutes. However, a traffic policeman, who looked as confused as commuters, directed the traffic towards the Railway light point. A gentleman was seen arguing with the cop that why he should be taking a detour when his office was just 100 metres away. Nobody had an answer. Now, we were on the green corridor with no clue from where to come back on Madhya Marg.
However, to our relief, we saw commuters making use of an opening left by a few missing grills on the divider to be on the other side. Though it was risky, it was worth taking to cut short the ordeal that we were caught in. Soon, we were on the right side and reached the school in a few minutes. What would have been a five-minute journey from my home turned a 40-minute ordeal, thanks to the “ill-conceived corridor” by the “ill-prepared” Chandigarh Administration.