Rowing can resume at Rabindra Sarobar if the results of a trial run of a petrol-powered rescue boat, scheduled for Thursday, are satisfactory.
The sport has remained suspended in the Sarobar since the drowning of two teenage rowers during a Nor’wester on May 21. A committee constituted by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority, the custodians of the lake, has responded to a request by the three rowing clubs by the lake, under the banner of the state rowing association, for conducting a trial of the petrol boat on Thursday.
“A trial run will be conducted around 11am on Thursday. Members of an expert committee will be present. If the results are satisfactory, we will give permission for resumption of rowing,” said an official of the KMDA.
The petrol boats will be used only as rescue boats, he added.
The water quality, air quality and noise levels within the Sarobar premises, before and after the trial run, will be assessed by the committee.
“We want to start rowing on Thursday itself, if the results are satisfactory,” Subhasish Dasgupta, president of the West Bengal Rowing Association and a member of Lake Club, told The Telegraph.
The KMDA had asked the three clubs and the state rowing association to submit the observations of past trials — of both battery and petrol-operated rescue boats.
The reply has been sent, said an association official. Past trials have found that amid light breeze, the standard speed of a petrol boat is around 30kmph while that of an electric boat is around 10kmp. “It means a petrol boat will take around 90 seconds to cover 500m.
An electric boat will take around four minutes to cover the same distance in similar conditions. When the winds are strong, the difference in time will be more because electric boats are heavier than petrol boats,” the official said.
Much of the delay in resumption of the Olympic sport, in it’s only venue in the state, had been attributed to a refusal by the KMDA to allow petrol-powered rescue boats in the Sarobar, citing a bar imposed by the National Green Tribunal.
Based on trials on water, the clubs have held that electric boats are not fast enough to respond to a crisis, like the one that proved fatal on May 21.
During a September 5 hearing, the National Green Tribunal said they had never restrained the KMDA from allowing petrol-powered rescue boats in the lake. The NGT’s observations paved the way for the resumption of the sport.