Delhi’s Barapullah Phase-III flyover faced severe congestion on its first full morning of operation on September 30, with traffic queues extending up to 3.5 kilometres and commuters reporting delays of 40 to 60 minutes, a day after the elevated corridor was inaugurated to cut travel time between Mayur Vihar and south Delhi.
Delhi Traffic Police estimated that 5–6 lakh vehicles converged on the new route after commuters began using it to reach destinations including AIIMS and the India International Centre. The congestion began building during the morning peak and continued on the Barapullah corridor until about 1.30 p.m., even as traffic on NH-24 and NH-9 eased earlier than usual.
A Mayur Vihar traffic police official said the corridor drew vehicles from several directions, including commuters who normally use NH-24 and the Delhi–Noida Direct Flyway. Traffic police deployed around 10–12 personnel on the Lajpat Nagar side and a similar number on the Mayur Vihar side to manually regulate vehicle movement.
South Delhi traffic Deputy Commissioner of Police Sandeep Gupta said navigation systems directed commuters towards the new corridor without adequately reflecting the developing congestion. “Google showed commuters the route but did not show the traffic layering. Everyone kept coming, but there was no option to return or get down,” he told The Hindu.
Once the queue reached about 3.5 kilometres, police temporarily stopped vehicles from entering the flyover from the Mayur Vihar side and diverted traffic towards NH-24. Vehicles were later allowed onto the corridor in phases as the backlog cleared, although congestion also developed at the entry point.
The immediate bottleneck was linked by traffic police to the difference in lane capacity between the new and existing stretches. Barapullah Phase-III has six lanes, with three in each direction, but connects to the existing Barapullah Phase-II stretch, which has two lanes. Mr. Gupta said traffic from the new corridor was effectively merging into a narrower section that was already carrying vehicles from Ring Road and Sarai Kale Khan.
“The old Barapullah flyover is already taking the traffic load from Ring Road and Sarai Kale Khan. Now three additional lanes of traffic are being added to that. So, seven to eight lanes of traffic are merging into two lanes, making it a bottleneck,” he said.
Commuters also reported substantial delays despite the corridor’s stated travel-time objective. Alabhya Dhamija, an Advocate-on-Record in the Supreme Court who lives in Noida and travels to court daily, said a navigation prompt led him away from his regular NH-24 route. He told The Hindu that the diversion cost him about 20–25 minutes and that the entry near Mayur Vihar was heavily congested.
The traffic police are in touch with Google regarding the absence of live congestion information on the new route. Mr. Gupta said traffic could be distributed between the new and existing corridors once mapping systems begin factoring in the developing congestion.
The other carriageway of the flyover was not opened on Wednesday because tents and other inauguration arrangements had not yet been removed by the Public Works Department. The department told the traffic police that the arrangements would be cleared overnight and that the carriageway would be opened on October 1.
The Phase-III corridor was among four road infrastructure projects worth ₹1,941 crore inaugurated on September 29 after years of delay. The government had presented it as a link between east and south Delhi that could reduce travel time between Mayur Vihar Phase-I and south Delhi by around 20–25 minutes. Traffic police said conditions could improve as traffic patterns settle and the remaining carriageway becomes operational.
