A portion of Camac Street in the central business district will remain shut to traffic for over a week and vehicles headed to AJC Bose Road will be diverted along Victoria Terrace and Gorky Terrace to facilitate the repair of a century-old underground brick sewer at the intersection of the two arteries.
If the project works, Camac Street’s recurrent waterlogging woes could be over, engineers said.
Parts of Camac Street and AJC Bose Road have already been dug up for the repair work and police have drawn up a traffic diversion plan, which will be in place for the next 10 days to facilitate the underground work of the sewer line, senior officers at Lalbazar said on Monday.
“Banners and hoardings with the traffic diversion plan have been placed. Vehicles headed towards AJC Bose Road down Camac Street will be diverted along Victoria Terrace after turning left skirting The Senator hotel. Ahead, these vehicles will then take a right on Gorky Terrace to reach AJC Bose Road,” said a senior police officer. “As of now, we are not diverting any traffic along AJC Bose Road.”
The diversion will be in place after 1pm when vehicles take a right turn from Park Street to go down Camac Street and reach AJC Bose Road. There will be no diversion for vehicles that take a left turn from AJC Bose Road and move down Camac Street earlier in the day, officers said.
The repair work of the underground sewer line was necessitated after engineers decided to probe why a part of the road surface at the intersection of Camac Street and AJC Bose Road had caved in, a little over a week ago.
After a portion of both roads were dug up, engineers realised that a part of the wall of the brick sewer underneath had crumbled after gradually sinking over time.
A depression in the wall of the brick sewer line over the years has also created a constriction, resulting in accumulated water on Camac Street during heavy showers.