The Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) yes­ter­day said an al­ter­na­tive route for the Pa­rade of the Bands for Car­ni­val 2014 has not been con­firmed.In a re­lease, the or­gan­i­sa­tion said it was still wait­ing on the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice to ac­cept, ac­tion and man­age the pro­posed al­ter­nate route.The re­lease was in re­sponse to a T&T Guardian ed­i­to­r­i­al which com­ment­ed on a de­ci­sion by some band­lead­ers who did not agree with the pro­posed change in the route to the big stage at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain."While we are de­ter­mined to get the al­ter­na­tive route in gear for Car­ni­val 2014 for the ben­e­fit of mas­quer­aders and spec­ta­tors, we are still wait­ing on the TTPS to ac­cept, act and man­age. That is the on­ly way we can pro­ceed," the NCC said.

The NCC ad­mit­ted there were is­sues with the new pa­rade route, which pro­pos­es for mas­quer­aders to en­ter the stage from east to west.It added: "In prepar­ing the new route, a main con­cern is the trucks that ac­com­pa­ny the Car­ni­val bands since they are one of the ma­jor caus­es of con­ges­tion for mas­quer­aders."But that leaves the route or­gan­is­ers be­tween a rock and hard place be­cause these trucks, as cum­ber­some as they are, are es­sen­tial for mas play­ers and we can­not dis­count the val­ue these ve­hi­cles pro­vide. So­lu­tions must con­tin­ue to be sought in that re­gard."

The NCC added progress could not be made with­out the co-op­er­a­tion of the band­lead­ers.The or­gan­i­sa­tion in­di­cat­ed that since last Jan­u­ary 2013, it had en­gaged C&H As­so­ciates to con­sid­er an al­ter­na­tive route."Since then, band­lead­ers, re­gard­less of af­fil­i­a­tion with the NC­BA, Na­tion­al Car­ni­val De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion and T&T Car­ni­val Bands As­so­ci­a­tion, were giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss its fea­si­bil­i­ty."

This dif­fers from state­ments from band­lead­ers, in­clud­ing Tri­ni Rev­ellers band­leader Derek Ra­j­nauth, who said band­lead­ers were on­ly in­formed of the changes this year."There was a not­ed re­luc­tance on band­lead­ers' part to con­tribute. Iron­i­cal­ly, while some band­lead­ers have been very vo­cal in their crit­i­cism about the al­ter­na­tive route, we are yet to re­ceive their so­lu­tions" the NCC said.In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, pres­i­dent of the T&T Car­ni­val Band­lead­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTC­BA), Ger­ard Weekes, said he had for­ward­ed so­lu­tions to the NCC but those had been ig­nored.The NCC al­so de­fend­ed its com­mu­ni­ca­tion with band­lead­ers about the new route."Suf­fice it to say, band­lead­ers were con­tact­ed. The NC­BA did take steps to com­mu­ni­cate with them. How­ev­er, the NC­BA (Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Band­lead­ers As­so­ci­a­tion) can on­ly do so much and the NCC has been tak­ing up the slack to fa­cil­i­tate out­reach," it said.The NCC said it had sched­uled one-on-one dis­cus­sions to give band­lead­ers a fi­nal op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­cuss their con­cerns about the al­ter­na­tive route.