Buses of about 600 routes will stop plying on the Tallah bridge on Sunday. A comprehensive traffic realignment and diversion plan was chalked out by the state transport department to avoid congestion in those routes and minimise inconvenience of commuters during the Pujas.

To make the plan effective, the transport department has engaged the experts of Railways India Technical and Economic Service (RITES) and PWD engineers.

“Vehicles weighing more than three tons had been barred from plying on the Tallah bridge. The plan will come into force from Sunday morning. Only smaller vehicles will be allowed to ply in order to lessen the load on the bridge. Keeping the pujas in mind, the experts of RITES and the state Public Works Department (PWD) who met at Nabanna in the presence of chief minister Mamata Banerjee chalked out an alternative traffic plan. It will be informed through an advertisement on news papers tomorrow,” said Firhad Hakim, mayor and state urban development minister at a press conference at Nabanna today.

Earlier, a high-level meeting presided over by the chief minister was held at Nabanna today on the interim reports submitted by the RITES. The experts along with the engineers of the PWD, city police commissioner and commissioner of Barrackpore police commissionerate had a threadbare discussion on the traffic plan keeping in mind the upcoming Durga puja.

Mr NS Nigam, state transport secretary, said, “Buses of about 600 routes which usually ply on the Tallah bridge will discontinue from Sunday.

To ease congestion of traffic on alternative routes, Metro authorities had been advised to revise the Metro services to Noapara and other stations to avoid inconvenience to commuters.

The details of traffic realignment will be made public in an advertisement in news papers tomorrow.

Two hundred people who live in shanties on the railway tracks would be relocated to a makeshift shelter, for which arrangements had been made.
Meanwhile, city police commissioner Anuj Sharma will visit Tallah bridge tomorrow to take stock of the situation and to oversee the implementation of the traffic realignment plan.