Salt Lake might have a world-class stadium, awash with floodlights, in Vivekananda Yubabharati Krirangan but of all the playgrounds that there are inside the township, a ground at GD Block is going to be the first to get adequate lights to host a match after sunset.
"We have trimmed the grass. The boundary wall, which had crumbled in places, has been repaired as well. Now we will install low mast lights," said Ranjan Poddar, councillor of Ward 34. The lights will be low mast so as not to disturb birds resting in nearby trees, he added.
There will be 18 poles on which a total of 72 lamps will be installed. "That makes it four in every pole. We will keep a provision to add more lights if the illumination is not adequate," he said. The current project cost has been pegged at Rs 70 lakh.
The ground incidentally is right opposite the residence of football legend P.K. Banerjee who used to enjoy watching children play there. After he passed away in March 2020, the ground was named in his memory.
The ward has another quality ground in neighbouring HB Block where the Indian Football Association (IFA) holds matches for its Kanyashree Cup Premiere B Division and is the home ground of Sribhumi Football Club. Poddar said residents had urged him for an illuminated ground where they could play in the evening.
The development is being welcomed by the IFA. "The more number of grounds get developed the better it is for the sporting infrastructure of the state. Calcutta has so few grounds and most of them are open fields in the Maidan. We are about to lose some of them like the grounds of Kalighat Sporting and Rajasthan Club because of Metro Railway construction. So we are looking around for a few more grounds where to hold our age-group tournaments," said IFA secretary Anirban Dutta when informed of the move by The Telegraph Salt Lake.
He advised the authorities to plan the height of the light poles by measuring the height a ball kicked in the air can rise to. "A player should not lose sight of the ball in the dark. Then he or she cannot take the correct position for it to drop," he pointed out. Another way of measuring whether the illumination is equally distributed is whether the shadow around a person standing in a floodlit ground is of equal length on all four sides, he added.
