20-km Traffic Jam on Delhi-Kolkata Route Leaves Vehicles Stranded for 3 Days

A massive traffic jam on National Highway 19, the vital route connecting Delhi and Kolkata, has left commuters and truck drivers stranded near Sasaram and Rohtas in Bihar for three straight days.

The stretch of 15–20 kilometres has brought traffic on the Delhi-Kolkata Route to a complete standstill. A truck driver traveling from Odisha to Delhi, Duban Kumar, said, “The jam started yesterday morning around 8 am. I’ve barely moved 5 kilometres and have been stuck in Sasaram since then. There’s almost no food, and we’re surviving on small snacks.”

Another driver, Sanjay Das, coming from Kolkata, added, “I’ve covered only 20 kilometres in the last 24 hours. There’s no help, just tea and biscuits to survive.”

The bottleneck has been caused by ongoing road-widening work by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) near Shivsagar. Recent heavy rains have further complicated the situation, reducing available road space and forcing vehicles onto temporary diversions, slowing traffic to a crawl.

Though the jam is confined to the Aurangabad–Varanasi stretch, it is severely impacting hundreds of trucks and passenger vehicles. Despite the strategic importance of NH19, authorities have yet to provide assistance or essential facilities for those stranded.

National Highway 19, part of the historic Grand Trunk Road, stretches from Agra in Uttar Pradesh to Dankuni in West Bengal, passing through major cities like Varanasi and spanning three states: Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal. It also forms a crucial segment of the international Asian Highway Network (AH1) and the Golden Quadrilateral, making it a key artery for trade and travel.