Mohali, July 10 -- Clearly no lessons were learnt from the past as Mohali's traffic came to a grinding halt on Thursday amid intermittent rains, exposing the city's chronic drainage failures. Journeys that normally take 10-15 minutes stretched to 40-60 minutes as vehicles crawled through submerged roads and bottlenecks. The Airport Road-Mataur corridor, one of the busiest commuter routes linking Chandigarh, Mohali, Kharar and the airport, witnessed bumper-to-bumper traffic for several hours. Office-goers, school buses and public transport remained caught in long queues. "It took me nearly an hour to reach Phase 8 from Kharar. The stretch near IISER was barely moving," said Rajesh Sharma, an IT professional. Sneha Sirkeck, another office-goer, said she remained stranded near Sohana gurdwara for about 40 minutes. "The rain wasn't very heavy, but waterlogging at a few points was enough to create chaos during the rush hour," she said. Aman Verma, a businessman in Industrial Area, said, "The same locations see waterlogging and congestion every monsoon. There appears to be little improvement despite repeated assurances." Niwas Sharma, a resident of Sector 70, echoed similar views. "Every monsoon, the same stretches get inundated, but there seems to be no permanent solution," she said. Janya Kumari, a resident of Sector 71, said she spent nearly 45 minutes covering a distance that normally takes less than 15 minutes. Neha Sharma, who works at Dyson teleperformance and lives in Kharar, said, "To ease congestion at gridlock-prone stretches in Phase 8 Industrial Area, a traffic police personnel should also be deployed during the evening rush hours. While personnel are usually present in the morning, traffic management is equally important in the evening, particularly on days when heavy rainfall or slow-moving vehicles worsen congestion. Many employees, including those working evening shifts at Teleperformance, report for duty at the same time that 9-to-5 office-goers are heading home. The overlap creates severe bottlenecks and chaotic traffic conditions around the high-density office clusters in the Industrial Area. A dedicated traffic deployment during these hours would significantly improve traffic flow and commuter safety." At several stretches across Mohali as traffic continued to swell, municipal corporation (MC) officials were seen using portable dewatering pumps to clear accumulated rainwater from low-lying areas. The pumps allow officials to drain flooded stretches into nearby stormwater channels. Residents, however, said the recurring exercise highlights the absence of a permanent solution. They argued that despite years of complaints and repeated monsoon flooding, the civic body is yet to comprehensively upgrade Mohali's stormwater drainage network, forcing it to depend on temporary pumping measures every monsoon. Chandigarh, meanwhile, largely escaped the chaos although minor waterlogging was reported in low-lying areas such as Dadumajra, Dhanas, Raipur Kalan and parts of Manimajra. Slow-moving traffic was seen near Panjab University Gate No. 3, the Sector 25-38 light point and smaller roundabouts of Sector 38-37, Sector 36-35 and Sector 33-32. An MC official said that flood control rooms were on alert through the day but no distress call was received from anywhere. A Sector 21 resident, however, said the MC had cleaned the gullies but left the construction waste on the roadside which led to water collecting at some points. In Panchkula, several low-lying areas saw waterlogging. The water level in a seasonal rivulet at Gumthala village in the Kaka area rose sharply, leaving schoolchildren and villagers stranded for a few hours after the connecting bridge was damaged. Rainwater also entered a government primary school in Nada Sahib village. (With inputs from Chandigarh & Panchkula)...