Bhubaneswar, Dec. 4: Police have started to divert Cuttack-bound vehicles through the Mancheswar industrial area from today to expedite construction of a flyover at Rasulgarh Square on National Highway-5.

The diversion will be in place till the work on the overbridge is over and authorities have set a four-month deadline for the job.

To ensure that they do not overshoot the deadline, the authorities are working overtime to finish construction of the overbridge in view of the forthcoming Nabakalebar festival next year.

After the diversion was put in place today, Cuttack-bound traffic took a left turn towards Mancheswar Industrial area from the Rasulgarh Square. The 2-km detour ends near the Mancheswar Police station where the road meets the highway. The work on the flyover had started after the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) in August 2010 signed an agreement with Sri Jagannath Expressway Private Ltd, a consortium of three private firms (SREI, Simplex and GALFAR), to widen the 67km Bhubaneswar-Chandikhol section of the Calcutta-Chennai highway.

Construction of the flyover here is part of the road-widening project.

As the construction firm is going to place slabs between two central spans of the overbridge, they wanted the portion of the highway at Rasulgarh Square be closed to traffic for reasons of safety.

From today, traffic police personnel wing have started to divert vehicles through the Mancheswar industrial area.

“After taking the diversion, heavy vehicles will return to the NH through the road in front of the police station. Besides, vehicles can also take the Canal Road and join the highway at Palasuni Square,” said Jatindra Kumar Panda, assistant commissioner of police, traffic.

However, it is not the movement of vehicles that is worrying cops. Traffic police officials are worried as they have to deploy nearly 10 constables in two shifts to facilitate vehicular flow at the square.

Senior cops said traffic marshals deployed by the construction firm were not competent enough to manage vehicular flow at the site of diversion. “This has forced us to deploy more men at this important junction. In view of our limited resources, this is going to affect traffic flow at other junctions in the city,” said a senior officer.

Though over four years have passed, construction of the flyover still remains incomplete. This has happened largely due to roadblocks such as encroachment and non-availability of land. Though work on the Rasulgarh flyover has been pending for long, two overbridges in the city — one at Acharya Vihar and the other at Vanivihar — was opened to public in May this year. However, work on flyovers at the CRP Square and the Fire Station Square is still going on.

Work on the flyover at Rasulgarh Square was expedited after encroachments were evicted in last three months.

In November, the authorities demolished four temples located at the traffic junction that had been creating problems for the overbridge. Besides, two slums between Vanivihar and Rasulgarh Square were also demolished in August to facilitate construction of flyover’s slope.