Taking into account the recently developed van der Waals (VDW) like equation of state (EoS) for grand canonical ensemble of fermions, the temperature dependent profiles of normalized entropy density ($s /T^3$) and the ratio of shear viscosity and entropy density ($η/ s$) for hadron resonance gas have been evaluated. The VDW parameters, corresponding to interactions between (anti)baryons, have been obtained by contrasting lattice EoS for QCD matter at finite chemical potentials ($μ_{B}$) and for $T \le$ 160 MeV. The temperature and chemical potential dependent study of $s /T^3$ and $η/s$ for hadron gas, by signalling onsets of first order phase transition and crossover in the hadronic phase of QCD matter, helps in understanding the QCD phase diagram in the ($T, μ_{B}$) - plane. An estimation of probable location of critical point matches predictions from other recent studies.

11 pages, 10 figures. To appear in Physical Review C