Sept. 16: Heavy vehicles would be barred from entering the state capital via Mahatma Gandhi Setu from the districts on six days, when the 5.575-km bridge would be closed for maintenance, the city police said today.

Announcing that a final plan would be chalked out tomorrow, Patna traffic superintendent of police (SP) Shivdeep Lande told The Telegraph that the initial plan included planned movement of heavy vehicles in co-ordination with the a dministrations of the neighbo-uring districts like Jehanabad, Vaishali and Nalanda.

The police today said the formal letter regarding the closure of the bridge between 11pm and 4am on September 18, 19, 22, 23, 27 and 28 reached them this evening.

“After the letter reached us, a meeting was held with senior police officers. A final and detailed plan regarding the road diversions would be prepared by Saturday,” Lande told The Telegraph.

The officer said the entry of heavy vehicles from Nalanda, Bhojpur and other neighbouring districts would be banned for those five hours.

“There will be proper co-ordination among the administrations of these districts so that the blocked trucks do not clog the roads. They could be stopped in different places along the whole stretch of the road,” he added.

Trucks and buses coming from areas such as Bakhtiyarpur on the outskirts of Patna would be diverted.

Vaishali SP Upendra Sinha told The Telegraph that heavy vehicles coming from Vaishali would be stopped.

“There is no other bridge through which they can pass. So they will be stopped and made to park along the road for five hours. After this, the policemen would make them pass slowly in an organised manner. The police would help prevent traffic jams,” the officer said.

Road construction department minister Nand Kishore Yadav said: “There is an urgent need to repair the 43rd, 44th and 45th spans of the eastern flank of the bridge. Hence, we have decided to close the bridge for vehicular traffic for a few days.”

Explaining the nature of repairs, the minister said it was related to pre-stress- ing work.

Gandhi Setu is the only functional bridge in India built using the pre-stress- ing technology.

Bridges built using this technology have re-stressing wires that bring back the spans of bridge to their original position after a vehicle passes over a particular span of the bridge.