Protesters come in 170 vehicles, spoil preparations by officials

Mumbai: More than 170 vehicles, including four-wheelers and minibuses were also part of Monday’s march. Traffic police officials said they knew that the vehicles of agitation members would pass through the Eastern Express Highway (EEH) and had stationed 50 officers accordingly. However, little did they know that they would come in a bulk of 170 vehicles and lead to a traffic jam for a 5km stretch from Chembur to Matunga at 10.30 am, at peak time, on Monday.

The 170 vehicles provided by the Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatna (SSS)  for the agitation to approve farmers’ loan waivers led to slow-moving traffic on the EEH during peak hours.

Amitesh Kumar, joint commissioner of police (traffic) said, “The only thing we did not know that they would come in such a large number and cause traffic jams. Since now we know well in advance that an additional 8,000 farmers are expected to arrive on Tuesday, we have made the arrangements accordingly and will station our traffic police officers to keep the situation under control.”

One of the commuters, Sachin Jaykar, who was driving from Mulund to his office in Kamla Mills, said, “I usually get stuck in traffic on normal days but reach office in time, but today I was a good 20 minutes late.”