Hyderabad traffic was severely disrupted on October 17 as the annual Dasara exodus sent tens of thousands of citizens towards their native towns and villages, overwhelming bus terminals, arterial roads and key inter-district highways around the city, according to a report by Deccan Chronicle.
The Mahatma Gandhi Bus Station, Jubilee Bus Station and Dilsukhnagar recorded heavy passenger footfall from the early hours. The Telangana State Road Transport Corporation deployed additional buses to manage the surge, but boarding bays and roads surrounding the terminals remained heavily crowded throughout the day.
The pressure extended beyond the city’s transport hubs. A large volume of private cars, buses and commercial vehicles created severe bottlenecks on routes leading out of Hyderabad, with the Hyderabad–Vijayawada Highway, or NH-65, among the worst affected corridors.
On NH-65, congestion stretched for several kilometres in Nalgonda district. Construction work on a new flyover at Chityal further restricted movement as festive traffic increased. The report said vehicles came to a complete standstill near Choutuppal and Borralagudem, leaving motorists stranded for more than an hour.
The disruption highlighted the operational challenge of managing a predictable, high-volume seasonal movement across a network that combines urban roads, highway junctions and construction zones. At Hyderabad’s bus terminals, the additional fleet deployment addressed passenger demand, but the available boarding areas and surrounding road capacity remained under pressure.
Commuters reported anger over what they described as an absence of active traffic personnel and highway patrol teams at bottleneck locations. The supplied report does not include a response from traffic police or highway authorities on deployment levels, diversion plans or the duration of the congestion.
The Hyderabad–Hanamkonda Highway also experienced significant slowing, with long queues reported near the Yadadri toll plaza. The corridor is one of the important road links carrying festive traffic away from the Hyderabad region, and the queues added to the wider disruption across the city’s outbound network.
The traffic build-up came as transport demand rose simultaneously at bus stations and on highways. Public transport operators faced concentrated demand from passengers travelling to smaller towns and villages, while private vehicles and commercial carriers added pressure on road corridors already affected by ongoing works.
The immediate transport response reported so far is the deployment of additional TGSRTC buses. Details of further traffic regulation, highway clearances or measures to ease movement at Chityal, Choutuppal, Borralagudem and the Yadadri toll plaza were not available in the supplied report.
