The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : An industry unregulated and unchecked

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Wednesday, Jan 30, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

An industry unregulated and unchecked

Ananth Krishnan

— Photo: N. Sridharan

SAFETY ISSUE: Several amusement parks in the country hardly meet international safety standards.

CHENNAI: If you decided to buy the equipment for a roller-coaster ride and set up an amusement park in your back-garden today, you would be surprised by the ease with which you could get your business going. You will not need a special safety certificate for your park from your local government, and you won’t even need to have any first-aid facilities on-site as you will most likely never have to face a safety inspection.

The amusement park industry remains largely unregulated in India. In the United States and in Europe, parks have to go through a strict system of certification before they can open their doors to customers. Usually, a State government’s Division of Heath and Occupational Safety also conducts its own inspection of a park before it can open up for business.

In the U.S. state of California, home to one of the largest amusement park industries in the world, a park has to have a State inspection every time it installs a new ride.

Parks in the U.S. are also required to have first-aid facilities at various locations, trained lifeguards on site and Automated External Defibrillators at several spots.

In India, the absence of enforcing agencies and safety inspections means that parks are not bound to have any of these facilities on-site. When an 11-year-old girl drowned in the Queensland Amusement Park in Chennai on January 16, her parents complained that there was no proper first-aid facility on-site. The amusement park, however, claims that most parks have “adequate” safety measures in place.

At large parks such as Disney Land and Six Flags in the U.S., lifeguards have to pass training programmes on administering first aid before they can be hired, and they are also put through frequent surprise safety audits by independent safety bodies.

In spite of these precautions, accidents continue to occur, highlighting the level of dangers involved in running theme parks.

Parks are also required to follow strict height-restrictions in the operation of rides — children under a certain height are generally not allowed to go on some of the more dangerous rides. While most amusement park authorities in the U.S. and Europe do not compromise on rules, parks in India seem to have trouble enforcing them. “We do impose height restrictions on rides… but sometimes people in Indian parks are not willing to follow the rules,” says V.G.P. Ravidas, President, Indian Association of Amusement Parks and Industries. “Riders too have to be more responsible. Safety is a two-way co-operation.”

While Mr. Ravidas acknowledges that the park industry in India is only “self-regulated”, he, however, says that this does not mean that safety is being compromised.

“The industry in India is at a very formative stage compared to the U.S.,” he says.

“Right now, it is a self-regulatory industry. But parks do take safety very seriously. It is in our interest to inspire confidence in the public, and if there are accidents, it also reduces our footfall.”

He, however, agrees that certification and enforced regulation are the ways forward to improve public confidence. “The IAAPI encourages member-parks to apply for international certificates,” he says.

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