Buses and small vehicles that ply through Nirmal Chunder Street towards SN Banerjee Road and Lenin Sarani will be diverted to facilitate the construction of a ventilation shaft for the East-West Metro project at Raja Subodh Mullick Square.
The movement of trams along Nirmal Chunder Street will be suspended, too.
A 50-metre stretch of Nirmal Chunder Street will be closed for the construction work, police said. The traffic diversion will take effect at 10pm on Friday and continue till the work is over.
Senior officials of the Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), the implementing agency of the East-West Metro corridor that will connect Howrah Maidan with Sector V, said the work would take around six months.
According to the diversion plan drawn up by the police, buses that now move through Nirmal Chunder Street towards SN Banerjee Road will be diverted towards Chittaranjan Avenue from the BB Ganguly Road intersection.
Cops said private buses of at least five routes would be diverted towards Chittaranjan Avenue. Smaller vehicles headed towards SN Banerjee Road or Sealdah will be diverted through the Ganesh Chandra Avenue crossing.
Buses headed for College Street from Lenin Sarani will move through Chittaranjan Avenue. The buses will be redirected to Colootola Street to reach College Street, the police said.
“Smaller vehicles that travel towards College Street through Nirmal Chunder Street can continue to do so. They will not be diverted,” said a senior police officer.
“The movement of trams along Nirmal Chunder Street will remain suspended till the construction is over,” the officer said.
A KMRC official said intermediate ventilation shafts boost air circulation in tunnels between stations. “When the distance between two stations is comparatively longer, an intermediate ventilation shaft is required to help the fans operate better at the two stations,” the official said.
Engineers said the shafts would suck out air in circulation and pump in fresh air.
One such shaft has been built below Strand Road to boost air circulation in the tunnel between Mahakaran and Howrah stations on the East-West corridor.