Panic over fuel supply chokes Hyderabad roads on March 25, traffic grinds to a crawl during morning rush hour

Fuel supply panic causes severe traffic congestion in Hyderabad on March 25, 2026, prompting police intervention to manage long queues and road chaos.

Long queues to refill vehicles with fuel spilled aggressively onto Hyderabad’s main roads by Wednesday (March 25, 2026) morning, turning key stretches into bottlenecks and forcing traffic police into continuous on-ground regulation to keep the city moving.

As vehicles crowded around petrol pumps and extended onto carriageways, peak-hour traffic slowed sharply across several junctions. The police personnel worked to compress the swelling lines into single-file or two-line queues, attempting to carve out space for traffic even as the volume continued to build.

The impact was most visible along the Old Mumbai Highway in Raidurgam, a crucial IT corridor that handles heavy office-hour traffic. The stretch from the Cyberabad Commissionerate office towards Care Hospitals near the Biodiversity Park junction resembled a parking lot rather than a moving roadway. Service lanes were completely saturated, while two to three lanes on the main carriageway were taken over by vehicles waiting to refuel, leaving only narrow gaps for moving traffic.

According to Raidurgam Traffic Inspector Pavan Mayasa, the situation began deteriorating late Tuesday night, particularly along the Lemon Tree stretch, where queues extended up to the IKEA underpass as well as near the Gachibowli U-turn towards Indira Nagar. Despite attempts by the traffic personnel to temporarily halt operations at some pumps to ease congestion, resistance from both customers and fuel station operators meant the queues continued to grow.

In Gachibowli, the traffic police maintained a near round-the-clock presence, regulating waiting motorists and enforcing queue discipline. Vehicles were allowed towards fuel dispensers in a controlled manner, with officers ensuring that the lines did not completely choke the junction.

The problem was not limited to arterial roads in the city. In several areas, especially those with narrow roads, queues that began at petrol pumps quickly stretched into adjoining streets. With customers arriving as early as 4 a.m., by daybreak the pressure had already built up, leaving little room for normal traffic to function.