Zirakpur’s infamous pothole sore spot for commuters amid official apathy

Can a pothole, just one, cause a traffic jam and throw the entire town into chaos? You would say—unlikely. But what if this oversized pothole was 10 feet wide and around 1 foot deep—actually it is a crater.

What if it was strategically located near a busy intersection on a national highway?

What if it was growing bigger by the day for three months now?

The traffic police just can’t see it, the Municipal Council completely ignores it, and the district administration is blind towards it.

Ask any daily commuter on the PR-7 Airport Road, and he or she shall tell you that a giant-sized crater near the McDonald’s intersection where the PR-7 road joins the Chandigarh-Ambala National Highway is a pain point. Traffic comes to a halt here suddenly as drivers’ vainly look to avoid damaging their vehicles. “Unsuspecting two-wheeler riders often fall here at night,” said Gurkirat, a delivery boy who takes orders from a nearby eatery. During monsoon it becomes a death trap. The traffic congestion around this pit spills onto the national highway, creating chaos at the intersection. Thereafter, it is a ripple effect, leading to traffic jams for hours.

“Queues of vehicles stretch for kilometres at end on three sides of the road,” said Vimal Kaishtha, a bank official who commutes on the route daily.

“Tippers and heavy vehicles have disfigured this road, but there is no one to even undertake patchwork,” said Naveen Saini, a Zirakpur resident.