Gurgaon: A 66kV high-tension transmission line snapped over NH-8 near Narsingpur on Saturday afternoon, shutting both carriageways of the Delhi-Jaipur Expressway for nearly 40 minutes and triggering traffic snarls stretching 5-6 km on either side. The outage also disrupted power supply to several areas along the Dwarka Expressway.No injuries were reported, but officials said the incident could have turned fatal had the live conductor come into contact with passing vehicles.The line, which carries electricity from the 220kV substation at Badshapur to the 66kV substation at Harsuru, snapped around 3.30pm and fell across the highway near the Indian Oil petrol pump at Narsingpur. Traffic police immediately halted movement on both carriageways and the adjoining service roads, stopping vehicles well before the affected stretch to keep commuters clear of the live wire.Vehicles travelling from Delhi were diverted left from Rajiv Chowk onto Southern Peripheral Road (SPR), while those headed from Manesar towards Delhi were routed via the Dwarka Expressway and SPR.The diversions did little to prevent gridlock as queues built up rapidly across Rajiv Chowk and Hero Honda Chowk, with traffic crawling from Narsingpur towards Kherki Daula.“It took me almost an hour to cross a stretch that normally takes less than 10 minutes. Initially, nobody knew why traffic had stopped. People started getting out of their vehicles to understand what had happened,” said Ankit Sharma, who was travelling from Delhi to Gurgaon.Another commuter, Shaival Malhotra, said it took him 25-30 minutes to cover the 4km stretch between Hero Honda Chowk and Rajiv Chowk on his bike.Traffic police and Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam Ltd (HVPNL) teams reached the site soon after the incident. The line was de-energised before crews removed the conductor from the highway.“Immediately after the conductor snapped, the affected transmission line was shut down to eliminate any risk to commuters. Power supply to the affected substations was restored by around 5pm, though it took some more time to normalise electricity in downstream substations and residential societies,” an HVPNL official said.The exact cause of the failure is yet to be established. Preliminary findings point to a mechanical fault, HVPNL officials said, though a detailed technical inspection is underway to confirm it.Vehicular movement resumed around 4.30pm once the cable was cleared and the stretch declared safe, but dispersing the backlog took far longer — congestion persisted for nearly two hours before traffic returned to normal.DCP Traffic could not be reached for comment. A traffic police officer noted that the lower weekend traffic volume limited the disruption. “On a weekday, a closure of this scale could have caused far longer queues,” the officer said.Officials said the coordinated response by the traffic police and HVPNL ensured that the live wire was secured quickly, and diversions were put in place without delay to avoid any untoward situation.By early evening, both power supply and traffic flow had largely normalised, though commuters faced residual delays as the backlog cleared.
