By IANS,
Kolkata : Emergency meetings are being held and probe committees formed as the authorities Friday grappled to identify the cause of the floodlight failure during the India-Sri Lanka one dayer at the Eden Gardens here Thursday.
The Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) formed a seven-member committee, the state Public Works Department (PWD) announced a single-member panel, and the Kolkata Police said it would conduct an on-the-spot inspection and file a report.
The match was disrupted for 26 minutes with four balls remaining in the Sri Lankan innings after the bulbs in one of the four floodlight towers at the High Court end of the ground conked. All the agencies involved have denied their responsibility, triggering a blame game.
The local organisers Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) have already formed a seven-member probe committee including Kolkata police commissioner Gautam Mohan Chakrabarti and joint commissioner (headquarters) Javed Shamim. The committee would give its report by Tuesday or Wednesday.
State PWD minister Kshiti Goswami, who said his department had no role to play in the maintenance of the towers, has asked an official to submit a report.
An emergency meeting was held at the city police headquarters at Lalbazar Friday where top officials of the police, CAB, PWD, power utility CESC were present.
The CESC representative put the blame on the CAB, saying the lights went out due to a snag in the tower.
However, CAB joint secretary Biswarup Dey denied the allegations.
“We have to depend on lot of agencies to organise the matches. We only consume the power supplied by the CESC. I don’t know why we are being blamed. There was neither any internal cable fault nor any fuse problem. There wasn’t any fault in the part of the line maintained by us leading to the tower from the CESC feeder line.
“The bulbs went out because of a voltage fluctuation. As the tower at the High Court end is the first of the four towers to receive the supply, the other towers remained unaffected as the load dropped after all bulbs in the tower went out,” he said.
A top city police officer also blamed the CAB saying it had not implemented any of the recommendations of a committee formed after a similar floodlight fiasco during the Indian Premier League (IPL) match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Deccan Chargers in 2008.
The committee had recommended replacement of the bulbs, use of UPS under each of the towers and provision for generators to take care of emergencies.
Police chief Gautam Mohan Chakrabarti declared that henceforth the CAB would not be given permission to hold any international matches if the recommendations were not implemented.
“We had told them to take the necessary steps. But they did not,” Chakrabarti said.
State home secretary Ardhendu Sen said the sports and PWD departments would deal with the matter on behalf of the government. “If I can, I will speak to the police commissioner tomorrow,” he said.
Earlier, CAB president Jagmohan Dalmiya said they were yet to identify the problem.
“We will go deep in to the matter. Such incidents are happening for the last two years,” he said.
On whether he suspected sabotage, Dalmiya said: “It is not possible to comment on this issue before getting a detailed report”.
But ruling Communist Party of India – Marxist (CPI-M) secretary Biman Bose said it could be sabotage. “An inquiry should be conducted for nailing those responsible for the incident”.