This holiday season, the residents of the State capital will remain deprived of boat rides on major lakes of the town.
Most of the boating facilities were shut down a few months after the accident in Ranchi lake last year wherein four people died, including a child. No specific precautions have been taken so far to improve safety at these sites. “We are working on an act to provide proper boating facilities to visitors in tourist spots. Boat rides have been stopped only where safety norms are not followed. Places where such norms are followed, boating still continues. Our main focus for Christmas and New Year is the maintenance of waterfalls,” said Sunil Kumar, Managing Director of Jharkhand Tourism Development Corporation.
Christmas and New Year are the two occasions when parks witness maximum crowds, especially for boating, where they can enjoy the heat of the sun in the chilly winter as well as spend quality time with families. This is also the time when maximum number of accidents is recorded because of shear carelessness in the safety of visitors. Instead of providing more safety measures at these sites so that accidents do not occur anymore, closing the boat rides is no solution to the problem.
Kanke reservoir was once the only site in Ranchi to host boating occasionally, but this provision had also been closed because of the accident.” Although there were no mishaps here, boat rides have been closed some 5 to 6 months ago, after the accident in Ranchi lake. The crowd since then has also decreased,” said a worker at Kanke dam.
Kanke dam, Hatia dam, Fun Castle in Ratu Road, Ranchi lake and Birsa Zoological Park are major sites providing boating facilities in the town. Fun Castle administrators claim all their four operational boats are equipped with life vests while divers too stay on duty during visiting hours. The Zoological Park has a functional boating service for the visitors.
Zoo director AK Patra said,” We have 15 boats of 2 seaters and 4 seaters. We do not allow anybody to enter the lake without a life jacket on. The lake is only 2 to 5 ft deep and so we do not have life guards. “ In the mean time, Ranchi can take a lesson or two from Jamshedpur, where boating at Dimna lake and Jayanti Sarovar are synonymous with safety. The authorities do not allow anyone to step on the boats without life jackets and h expert divers are employed to avoid any mishap.