The district administration claims that water parks do not require safety norms, as it is impossible to drown in water that is three feet deep
If making a splash into a water park is your idea to beat the heat this summer, make sure to check if the park has adhered to the safety rules.
According to Rashtriya Life Saving Society of India (RLSS), which works for water safety in association with the PMC, no water park in the city has followed the water safety codes.
There are no guidelines issued by the district administration to water parks to ensure the safety of its visitors. The administration does not even have a system in place to check if the water parks in the district have followed the safety norms.
“We have not outlined any guidelines specific to the safety measures in water parks,” said Naib Tehsildar, Rohini Shinde from the district entertainment duty department. Instead of working on establishing rules and regulations, highly placed officials in the district administration claimed that there would be no need of safety measures in water parks as it is impossible to drown in the water with the depth of three feet.
“Don’t these officials remember the incident last year where a Chinese national drowned in the swimming pool of five star hotel in the city with a depth of 4.5 feet?
It seems that the administration is waiting for another tragic incident to happen,” said Director of Swimming and Life Saving Training Centre of RLSS, Kavita Sharma. She added that her organisation surveyed water parks in the city and found that there was no one to supervise how many people were entering the park.
“There is no restriction on the number of people entering the park and very few lifeguards are present to monitor the situation,” Sharma said. She rubbished the claim of the officials of the administration that people are safe in the low water levels. “Floating water in water parks is more dangerous than still water in swimming pools and therefore, chances of drowning is higher in water parks,” added Sharma.
Meanwhile, citizens are also concerned about the lack of safety measures in water parks in the city. “I visited a water park in the city 15 days ago and found that the lifeguards, who were less in number, were not in uniforms which made it difficult to identify them,” said Kamlesh Singh, a resident of Khadki. Mrinal Joshi, said that the water park in Pimpri-Chinchwad area had excessive chlorine in the water.
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