No boatman will be allowed to carry out immersion henceforth
| Date :15-Sep-2019 |
Meeting of officials and crane operators, boatmen at the PHQ.Staff Reporter :
Monitoring of unregulated boating in lakes will be done
A meeting of boat and crane operators was organised at the Police Control Room which witnessed officials of Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC), Police Department and district administration. The meeting witnessed presence of DIG Irshad Wali, BMC Commissioner Vijay Datta , ADC Kamal Solanki, ADC Rajesh Rathore, ADC Pawan Singh, Santosh Gupta and RTO officials and police officials. The boat operators were directed to refrain from any immersion activities.
No boat will be allowed in immersion sites. Crane operators will be deployed and only they will be assigned to do any kind of immersion task. With Navdurga festival around the corner, emphasis is given on ensuring safety measures. Especially, for big idols special security and safety arrangements will be done and there would be special mom management, the officials said. During the meeting it was also brought to notice that as per the orders issued by district administration Madhya Pradesh State Tourism Development Corporation has been assigned task to regulate boat men in lake.
The guidelines included that the quality of boats, certificates of boatmen etc was assigned to tourism officials. Other direction includes Safety tube should be in adequate numbers, boatmen should be swimmer and should be equipped with training to meet emergency situation, boatmen should be registered and technical certificates of boats is also must.
These directions were issued considering movement illegal boatmen and fishermen in Upper Lake and Lower Lake. Boat operators should not be drunk and district administration has also given special directions to allocate total number of persona allowed in boat in tourist spots. During the discussion of safety measures it was mentioned that unregulated boating is not being monitored by MPSTDC. Private boat operators do not have any registration numbers, defined seating capacity and show least concern about safety measures. National Disaster Management Plan (NDMP) has empowered the state government for enforcement and implementation for safe boating in waterways or water bodies through district administration and Panchayat.
NDMP recommends that compliance of keep mandatory provisions for boats to have registration with the local statutory body of the concerned State. The Registration number should be prominently marked on the boat on a particular place as decided by the authority. The availability of proper infrastructures at each wharf (Jetty) for embarkation and disembarkation are equally important for safe boating. It should be the responsibility of local authorities to provide adequate facilities. Every boat should have approved life saving equipment sufficient for the number of persons that can be carried. Lifesaving appliances such as life jackets etc should be in boats and monitoring must be done on people to ensure they wear safety jackets.