World Food India, visiting dignitaries choke traffic in

The visiting foreign dignitaries and the heavy footfall at India Gate on the opening of World Food India festival here today led to a traffic mess on the city's roads with commuters having a hard time reaching their destinations.
The traffic congestion was in two spells -- one that started at 9.30 AM when the VVIPs were travelling to the inaugural function at Vigyan Bhawan and then later at 11 AM when the Prime Minister and the VVIP delegates started moving towards India Gate, the police said.
The arterial roads in Lutyens' Delhi were clogged with severe vehicular traffic due to the heavy footfall at the World Food India festival which opened at the India Gate today and visiting foreign dignitaries.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also held talks with Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Latvian Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis to cement bilateral ties with the two countries at Hyderabad House later in the day.
With so many foreign dignitaries present in the national capital, the police had to facilitate VVIP movement that led to traffic congestion.
There was also a religious function at Gurdwara Rakab Ganj ahead of Gururpurab tomorrow that further led to chaos in Lutyens' Delhi.

The VVIP movement, including the arrival of large number of delegates at the food festival, choked the roads in Lutyens' Delhi affecting vehicular movement on other roads as well, a senior traffic police official said.

Nearly 3,000-4,000 delegates were present at the inaugural function at Vigyan Bhawan and at the venue of the event at India Gate. The traffic situation was further worsened by the large number of vehicles on the roads.
Traffic spilled over to Vikas Marg from Bhairon Marg where a parking space was arranged for the visitors of the food festival.
This caused heavy traffic on Vikas Marg from Laxmi Nagar to ITO.
Delhi Traffic Police alerted commuters on its official twitter handle about the heavy traffic near India Gate and other parts of the city.
"Traffic is heavy at C -- Hexagon (India Gate) due to VVIP movement," they tweeted, suggesting to commuters to avoid the area.

The roads heading to India Gate, including Kasturba Gandhi Marg, Ashoka Road, Akbar Road, Shahjahan Road and Zakir Hussain Marg were also clogged due to barricading by the police to divert traffic away from the venue.
The three-day festival is being organised by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries at the India Gate lawns.
Delegates from over two dozen countries, those from different Indian states, and the food processing industry are participating in the event.
Many judges of the Supreme Court were also stuck in the mega traffic jam in Lutyens' Delhi due to the heavy footfall at the World Food India festival.

Neena Sengupta, a media professional, said that she was stuck in a jam from Pragati Maidan.
"I was travelling from Vaishali to Central Delhi. It is usually a 40-45 minute drive. Today, it took me more than one-and-a half hours to reach my workplace since I was stuck in jam which started as I approached Pragati Maidan," Sengupta said.
She said that her vehicle "barely managed to move" till Firozshah Road circle which was completely packed.
"It was thanks to some traffic police personnel who came in to manage the situation that I finally reached office," she added.