Eager crowds, traffic snarls: Job fair chaos engulfs Bengaluru roads

Traffic choked and crawled at a snail’s pace in the heart of the city on Tuesday, as thousands of job seekers from across the state gathered at Palace Grounds for the job fair organised by the Karnataka Skill Development Corporation.

With nearly 2,000 buses carrying thousands of eager applicants to the city, traffic police struggled to ensure their smooth movement into the grounds via Jayamahal Road. Despite traffic diversions to ensure uninterrupted flow of traffic on Ballari Road, the road also saw major traffic jams throughout the day.

“We also had about 1,000 four-wheelers trying to enter the grounds and we had to squeeze them all through on the road, which was very difficult to manage given the width of the road,” said Siri Gowri, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic North). 

Large crowds could be seen alighting from the buses and walking the rest of the distance into the Grounds, taking up significant space on the roads due to lack of usable footpath space.

In the afternoon, Jayamahal Road came to a complete standstill as vehicles took nearly 25 minutes or more to cross the Jayamahal bus stop to reach Queens Road. By evening, many of the buses parked inside the grounds began departing while the crowds spilled onto both Ballari Road and Jayamahal Road to catch local buses, slowing down traffic movement.