Ghaziabad: Protesting farmers at UP Gate blocked carriageways between Delhi and Ghaziabad of the Delhi-Meerut-Expressway (DME) on both sides, and the National Highway 9 for about 10 hours on Tuesday, which resulted in massive traffic jams and inconvenience to local residents and commuters. The blockade started at 7am and ended by 5pm, while the carriageway has continued to remain blocked since December 3.

Thousands of farmers have been camping at UP Gate in Ghaziabad, near the Delhi border, since November 28 demanding complete rollback of the three new farm laws. Their leaders for the past couple of days have been alleging that farmers coming to join the protest in tractor-trolleys from Uttarakhand and other parts of Uttar Pradesh were stopped midway, and demanding that they be allowed to proceed. On Tuesday morning, protesting farmers blocked the carriageways by placing tractors. As the road was empty, some could be seen playing cricket over the empty lanes. After a marathon of discussions with officials, the blockade was lifted by 5pm from the carriageways.

“The carriageway was vacated by the protesters and we have assured that all their issues will be taken up. They were demanding that their vehicles must not be stopped from approaching the UP Gate site from other areas in the state. However, we have to check vehicles in order to ascertain that no anti-social element gets in. We held discussions with other officers and got the issue resolved. The carriageway was vacated around 5pm,” said Praveen Kumar, inspector general (Meerut range). The carriageway has been blocked thrice now –December 8, 14 and 21. Leaders of the farmers, however, denied blocking the highway. “We did not put any blockade; it was blocked by the police and this is causing inconvenience to our vehicles as well as to local commuters. Our tractor-trolleys are being stopped in different areas of UP. Our protest is going on peacefully and it is up to the government to pick a date, place and time for talks. We are waiting but we have not received any communication so far,” said Rakesh Tikait, farmer leader and national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU).

Ghaziabad district magistrate Ajay Shankar Pandey said that vehicles coming towards Ghaziabad were diverted through the Anand-Vihar/Kaushambi border route by the Delhi traffic police. “As part of the ongoing diversion, vehicles going to Delhi from Ghaziabad have been using the Kaushambi border route. On Tuesday, however, those coming to Ghaziabad from Delhi also had to use the same route as the carriageway was blocked by farmers,” he said. Delhi Police’s public relation officer, Anil Mittal, said that the carriageway going to Ghaziabad from Delhi was closed for vehicles after farmers blocked roads at the UP Gate border.

“So, traffic was diverted from Nizamuddin Khattha, Akshardham and Ghazipur chowk for onwards journey towards Ghaziabad, via Anand Vihar, Apsara and Bhopra borders,” said Mittal.

UP Gate – a border area between Ghaziabad and Delhi – sees about 80,000 passenger car units pass through every day, as per official estimates of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). The authority’s officials estimate that the blockade on Tuesday could have affected about 50% of the traffic. The blockade resulted in massive jams at the Kaushambi border. Local residents said that even the internal lanes of Kaushambi Township were choked till 12.30pm on Tuesday.

“On normal days, when there is a traffic diversion here, the jams last up to 11am but the volume of traffic increased manifold on Tuesday and there was chaos till 12.30pm. Due to the diversion, Kaushambi is already facing jams as people going to Delhi take any lane they can find,” said VK Mittal, president of Kaushambi Apartment residents’ welfare association. “Initially, I and some colleagues proceeded to Kaushambi border but we had to turn towards Sector 62, Noida due to heavy traffic, from where we headed to the Delhi-Noida-Direct (DND) Flyway to reach Delhi. Many commuters from Indirapuram faced traffic issues due to the blockade and some used the Hindon canal road to reach Ghazipur to enter Delhi,” said Kuldeep Saxena, a resident of Indirapuram who uses the stretch daily.

The NH 9 starts from Akshardham in Delhi and goes up to Lucknow, while the inner six lanes of the Delhi Meerut Expressway (DME) overlap the highway lanes up to Dasna in Ghaziabad. From Dasna, the DME goes up to Meerut.

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