People wait to reach home after PM's meet

Visakhapatnam: The public meeting of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the inaugural of various projects at Andhra University College of Engineering grounds received an overwhelming response in Visakhapatnam.

On Saturday, the venue was brimming with about 1.5 lakh people who arrived from different districts.

The YSRCP leaders pulled out all stops to mobilise people to the venue well in advance. A fleet of auto-rickshaws, private, school and RTC buses were pressed into service to ferry people from places.

Hundreds of vehicles arrived at the grounds at different intervals, travelling across various routes.

Although the arrival part at the venue went on in a hassle-free manner, the returning exercise turned out to be challenging for the police as several parts of the city witnessed traffic bottlenecks.

After hours of spending time at the public meeting, people came out of the venue all at once. With this, the surrounding roads too became chock-a-block.

Traffic went for a toss as hundreds of buses and auto-rickshaws got stuck at parking spaces and road stretches. Squatting on the footpath and other vacant spaces, many were seen waiting to board the vehicle and reach home.

Even as the PM's meeting got over by 11:30 am the traffic bottlenecks were, however, continued much later.

It was only after 3 pm the congestion was eased a bit at various localities, including the stretch from Maddilapalem to Akkayyapalem and Peda Waltair.

To make the event a hassle-free one without any untoward incidents, DGP KV Rajendranath Reddy supervised the arrangements by staying in the city for the past two days.

Later, the DGP lauded the efforts of the team for organising the event in a smooth manner.