Mussoorie sees traffic jams as holidays trigger tourists’ rush
MUSSOORIE: Baisakhi and Easter holidays led to a huge tourist rush to Mussoorie, resulting in long queues of vehicles and traffic jam in the hill town on Friday, officials said.
“Over 2,000 vehicles entered Mussoorie by 4.00 pm leaving no place at both private and government-run parking facilities of the town,” said Municipal Board president Anuj Gupta.
The police department struggled to manage the traffic and had to impose one-way traffic plan to control the movement of the tourist vehicles reaching Mussoorie.
“We have deployed additional force to manage the traffic but the problem being faced is at the regular bottleneck areas near Library Bazaar, Picture Palace and on the way to Kempty falls,” said Girish Chandra Sharma, Mussoorie police station in-charge.
“We have imposed a one-way traffic plan to manage the traffic at Mullingar, Gandhi Chowk, and Mall Road and are making efforts for smooth vehicular movement,” he added.
The tourists were caught in the traffic jam on Gandhi Chowk for more than two hours.
Nidhi Shrivastava, a tourist from Sundar Nagar Delhi, said, “We came to relax in the cool climate of Mussoorie but are caught in the traffic jam for the past couple of hours. With two siblings crying out for milk and water, it is becoming a painful experience.”
The heavy rush at Kempty fall also hindered the vehicular movement.
Barinder Singh, a tourist from Moga in Punjab, said, “We have been stuck for an hour and do not know when we will reach the Kempty falls.”
Meanwhile, the tourists returning from Kempty fall said that they were delighted to bathe in the pool.
The business community of Mussoorie was delighted to see an unprecedented rush of tourists in Mussoorie.
Sanjay Agarwal, the president of the Mussoorie hotel association, said, “After a long period the town is witnessing such a rush where maximum hotels are fully booked till Sunday.”
Some tourists had to head towards Dhanaulti and Kempty falls on finding most of the hotels fully booked. At Dhanaulti too 90 per cent of hotels were booked by noon.
Ashish Gusain, a hotelier from Dhanaulti, said, “We are also left with few rooms which hopefully will be booked by evening”.
Long queues of tourist vehicles were seen at Library Bazaar taxi and bus stand in Mussoorie.