Shimla (Himachal Pradesh): As the incessant snowfall from the past couple of days, has thrown normal life out of gear in Shimla, the mercury dipped to -3.7 degrees Celsius, the lowest for the season on Thursday.
Apart from Shimla, other areas like Kangra, Kullu, Sirmaur, Shimla, Kinnaur, Lahaul-Spiti, Chamba and Mandi were also blanketed by snow in the morning.
As the temperature dip to sub-zero levels, a thick blanket of snow on road has caused traffic snarls at various major junctions of the city.
"Due to snowfall over 735 roads including five national highways were shut in the morning. Not only that, in as many as electricity supply in 3,131 houses were disrupted. The problem is likely to aggravate in the future as the temperature is plunging which will freeze the water pipelines," said Preetam Singh Thakur a local.
Also, many tourists were stranded for hours on the highways on their way back home from the winter vacations in the white wonderland.
The snow clearance operation was carried out by Border Road Organisation (BRO) at Mandhol area of Shimla on Thursday morning.
As many as 735 roads including five national highways were closed in Himachal Pradesh due to thick blanket of snow covering the road.
Only 4x4 vehicle operators are fleecing stranded tourists in Manali since Wednesday afternoon.
Manali town has been cut off from Patlikuhal on the Chandigarh-Manali Highway.
People were rescued from Koti, Naldehra and Chharabra areas of Shimla
The Kullu-Manali highway route stretched for hours after heavy snowfall in Manali rendered roads impenetrable.
According to the India Meteorological Department, in the past 24 hours, Keylong in Lahaul-Spiti district recorded the lowest minimum temperature of -14.6 degrees Celsius, Kalpa of Kinnaur district recorded -9.1 degrees Celsius, Manali recorded -7.8 degrees Celsius, Dalhousie recorded -5.6 degrees Celsius, Kufri recorded at -5.2 degrees Celsius.
Also, Solan recorded -0.8 degrees Celsius and Dharamshala recorded a minimum temperature of 1.6-degrees Celsius.
Vehicles fines for overcharging
As soon as police received complaints against the illegal charges drivers are charging from tourist to go to Manali from Patlikuhal, they issued challans.
A team of Assistant RTO and Police has been formed who is continuously checking.
ASP Kullu, Rajkumar said, "Taxi drivers are appealed not to charge overcharge from tourists. We are constantly checking and have till now caught 14 drivers and have collected around Rs 13,500 fine till now from them."
Meanwhile, India Meteorological Department (IMD) has also predicted that the city will receive light snow on Friday with the temperature between -1 degrees Celsius and 10 degrees Celsius.
The sky is expected to be cloudy on January 10 and 11.
