Rabindra Sarobar will remain closed between November 2 afternoon and the next morning to ensure Chhath Puja devotees do not perform their rituals in its water.

The National Green Tribunal had banned any kind of puja celebrations on the 192-acre Sarobar campus in November 2017, a Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) official said.

But thousands of devotees completed their rituals in the Sarobar last year.

The CMDA is the custodian of Rabindra Sarobar. The CMDA official said the agency would not allow a repeat this year. “Rabindra Sarobar will remain closed between November 2 afternoon and November 3 morning. It is difficult to segregate who is going in for a walk and who is going in for a ritual,” he said.

There will be a complete closure because the CMDA fears a chaos if some like joggers are allowed on the campus and devotees are banned, the official said.

Besides, guards will be posted at the gates a few days before Chhath Puja to ensure no one gets in with flowers. Usually, devotees start to block the area two or three days before Chhath Puja, another CMDA official said.

This year, the puja is on November 2. Additional security will be in place from October 31, the official said.

“We are hiring 177 additional guards to prevent people from entering the campus for Chhath Puja rituals. Each of the sixteen gates will have at least four guards,”he said. Police, too, will be on duty.

Devotees, according to environmentalists, float flowers in the water, which kill aquatic insects and fishes. Lamp oil spills on to the water and affects the biodiversity of the region.

The alternative sites where devotees can perform their rituals are in Nonadanga, Baishnabghata and Nature Park near Taratala, the CMDA official said. There are plans to use the water bodies in Bijoygarh and Bikramgarh for the rituals.

The CMDA will have vehicles outside the Sarobar campus to transport devotees to these alternative venues.

Mani Prasad Singh, president of Rashtriya Bihari Samaj, told Metro that close to 8,000 devotees performed the rituals in the Sarobar.

“Most people go to the Hooghly. Those who live in east Calcutta or close to the Sarobar go there,” Singh said. “Close to 35,000 people gather at the Sarobar every year.”