Only fuel-powered rescue boats can be of help in case of an accident in Rabindra Sarobar as battery operated boats would never be able to move as fast, mayor Firhad Hakim said on Saturday.
Hakim said the CMDA was wrong in asking the rowing clubs to use battery-operated boats for rescue purposes.
Hakim, who is also the chairperson of the CMDA, said the organisation would go to the National Green Tribunal so that speedboats can be used for rescue. He added that the use of the petrol-run boats should be strictly restricted for emergency rescue and “not for entertainment” purposes.
Green activist Subhas Datta, who has filed a series of petitions for the protection of Rabindra Sarobar told Metro that there was never any ban on using diesel or petrol run rescue boats.
“The tribunal had only said that no motor vehicle should enter Rabindra Sarobar. In none of its orders it has ever said that rescue boats run on diesel or petrol cannot be used...,” Datta said on Saturday evening.
Two young rowers drowned in the waters of Rabindra Sarobar on May 21.
The CMDA had written to the three clubs — Bengal Rowing Club, Calcutta Rowing Club and Lake Club — on May 18 that use of diesel/petrol operated motorised speedboats during rowing competition was “a severe violation of NGT norms”.
“The CMDA had given a wrong letter. Rescue boats cannot be battery operated boats because the speed of battery operated boats can never match that of petrol run boats...,” Hakim said.
CMDA officials had earlier said they had asked the clubs to use battery-operated boats to comply with NGT rules.
Police had said that the boat in which the two rowers were present had capsized around 5.15pm but Lake Club officials had said that a rescue boat was not pressed into action at least till 5.30pm.
The allegation of the absence of a rescue boat was not the only deficit that came to light after the death of the two boys. One of the two rowers who were in the same boat said they had no training on how to respond in such a situation. The rowers also didn’t know that boats used for rowing were designed in a way that they would never sink. It is suspected that the two boys drowned while they tried to swim back to the shore.
Rowing in the Rabindra Sarobar will be suspended till the police draw up a standard operating procedure (SOP) in consultation with the disaster management group, a meeting at the city police’s headquarters decided on Friday.
On Saturday, Hakim said rowing would begin again in the Sarobar after the police were ready with the SOP. “We cannot stop the school regatta. Future rowers come up from these competitions...,” he said.