Cornered over showing disrespect to the tallest Tricolour unfurled by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on January 23 last, Deputy Commissioner of Ranchi Manoj Kumar, who happens to be the ex-officio chairman of the Pahari Mandir Vikas Samiti, on Wednesday roped in Army personnel to salvage the national flag at Pahari Hills.
Soldiers of the Indian Army will now attempt to bring down the Tricolour atop Pahari Hills, which has been flying at half-mast for the past four days, not as a sign of State mourning but due to a technical snag. The soldiers will try to cut the cable supporting the national flag to bring it down while hanging from a helicopter on Thursday morning.
According to JK Jha, technical expert from MECON, who addressed a Press briefing on Wednesday, the new flag that was being raised to replace the torn one, got stuck while being hoisted when the rope dislodged from the pulley positioned at the top of the pole for moving it.
"We tried to bypass the trip system of motor powering the winch mechanism used to move the flag to generate more force so that the rope's position can be corrected but that resulted in failure of the coupling. We also tried to move it manually but even that was not effective to a certain limit," explained Jha.
Any extraordinary force on the winch system might worsen the problem, leaving two options open, either to put the rope back in place on the pulley or cut it from above the flag. If the cable is severed from beneath the flag, wind pressure will take it away making it unfeasible to get hold of it again, said Jha.
A team from 7017 EME Battalion led by lieutenant-Colonel Niranjan Singh inspected the site of the flag with Deputy Commissioner, Ranchi Manoj Kumar and members of Pahari Mandir Vikas Samiti to find out possible measures that can be taken to safely lower the flag.
Rejecting the idea of one of their climbers scaling the pole to reposition the rope or cut it from above the flag, Singh calling it 'not advisable' on safety grounds, said it was decided that the work will be done by a soldier roping down from a hovering helicopter.
Once the objective of lowering the flag is achieved, attention will be turned towards sorting out technical shortcomings so that the record-setting Tricolour is not in the news for the wrong reasons.
"The Tricolour should be put up once again at the top of Pahari Hills after taking care of the problems haunting it. We have used the same material and techniques used elsewhere in taller flags, without compromising with quality. Despite that, since the pole tops others by 130 metres, we are the ones facing these problems for the first time despite having similar aspects," stated Ranchi DC in a Press conference.
First, we will bring down the flag and study the aspects associated with it before putting it up once again, stated Deepak Agarwal, Project Management Consultant for Pahari Mandir Vikas Samiti.
"In interactions with Flag Foundation of India, we have been told that the one flag has the life of 15 days to 3 months. Considering this, we will keep spare flags in stock to hoist on rotation basis. We are even looking into alternatives for fabric which will further elongate the life of the flag," stated Jha.
The funds used to keep up with endless hitches faced by the flag are borne by Pahari Mandir Vikas Samiti, informed Agarwal. "Although we have outsourced most of the expenses incurred in the flag, some of it also comes from the donations made to Samiti. There is no demarcation in the donations, establishing whether the amount is used for developing the temple premises or maintaining the Tricolour," he said.