Confusion over CAB contract for Eden lights

The Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) played a switch hit on Wednesday, giving Siemens a two-month contract to maintain the glitch-prone floodlight towers at Eden Gardens but retaining the services of the previous contractor.

The complicated arrangement seemed to have left everyone except the CAB confused, though Siemens officials didn’t let slip even a word of criticism.

“We will pay Siemens Rs 4.76 lakh a month for maintenance in accordance with the government’s proposal, and the arrangement is for two months. Having said that, it doesn’t mean the CAB will wash its hands of the lighting arrangements,” said a senior official of the cricket body.

The official said the CAB’s “team” would remain responsible for the circuits and high-tension switches during the IPL matches, starting Sunday.

Siemens’s chief marketing manager, Abhijit Bhowmick, said the company would do its best to fulfil its commitment despite being entrusted with a set of floodlights that has blinked thrice on big-match days since the first edition of the IPL in 2008. The last blackout was during the India-Sri Lanka ODI on 24 December.

“It’s a huge task considering that the system is very old (the country’s oldest). And it’s quite difficult to predict that everything will work fine for such an old system,” Bhowmick said. “But we hope to deliver,” he added.

Siemens, one of the global leaders in lighting systems, was selected following a meeting of the CAB top brass, representatives of the Kolkata Knight Riders, city police chief Gautam Mohan Chakrabarti and DGP Bhupinder Singh at Writers’ Buildings last week.

The contract, formalised just four days before Eden’s first match of IPL 3, comes in the wake of warnings from the police that no more lighting goof-ups that compromise crowd safety would be tolerated. “This issue was discussed threadbare during our meetings with all concerned, and we hope things will be fine,” said Jawed Shamim, the joint commissioner (headquarters).

Commissioner Chakrabarti had ruffled feathers by threatening to stop Eden from hosting matches after December’s dark disaster.

Sources said the CAB had hired eight diesel generators from Hyderabad — two each for each tower — to bypass possible voltage fluctuations in the CESC line. “Each of the generators will supply power to 108 out of the 216 lamps in every tower. So even if there is a problem with one generator, the rest of the lamps will glow,” a CAB official explained.

A trial run is slated for Thursday.


Kinsuk Basu, The Telegraph Metro