Shas­tri Boodan

Ch­agua­nas may­or Gopaul Bood­han says “cor­po­rate free­load­ers” will be banned from Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions in the bor­ough.

He said the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion and Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee ( CCC) has tak­en a de­ci­sion not to al­low any cor­po­rate en­ti­ty to do any unau­tho­rised ad­ver­tis­ing or erect struc­tures along the pa­rade venue at Ram­saran Street for this Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions.

Bood­han spoke with the me­dia fol­low­ing a meet­ing with the CCC, band­lead­ers and the po­lice at the cor­po­ra­tion’s of­fices at Cum­ber­batch Street on Wednes­day night.

He said last year, a lo­cal tele­phone provider erect­ed a tow­er and placed ban­ners at the venue with­out mak­ing any con­tri­bu­tion to the cel­e­bra­tions de­spite that tele­phone provider hav­ing ben­e­fit­ed im­mense­ly from the busi­ness of the burgess­es for decades.

While say­ing that the CCC was cash-strapped this year the may­or urged po­ten­tial free­load­ers to make some form of con­tri­bu­tion to cul­tur­al de­vel­op­ments in the bor­ough.

He said be­cause of a lack of fund­ing, cel­e­bra­tions had been scaled back and would com­mence on Sun­day with Kid­dies Car­ni­val.

Bood­han said the re­sources of the po­lice, the mu­nic­i­pal po­lice, fire and dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness would be in place to en­sure il­le­gal and unau­tho­rised struc­tures are torn down.

He said, “Last year we had a ma­jor tow­er there and the struc­ture was not strong and we don’t want any mishaps. We are say­ing that no cor­po­rate or­gan­i­sa­tion would come and just set up in Ch­agua­nas with­out sup­port­ing Ch­agua­nas Car­ni­val.”

Bood­han said de­spite a cut­back in fund­ing, the stage is set and ready for cel­e­bra­tions. I am still mak­ing the ap­peal to all cor­po­rate cit­i­zens in­clud­ing the banks to please give us some lev­el of sup­port to take care of the cel­e­bra­tions in Ch­agua­nas. We ex­pect to have a bumper J’Ou­vert with more bands than years gone by.”

This year’s cel­e­bra­tions are ex­pect­ed to cost $400,000.

Com­mit­tee vice-chair­man Ronald Heera said the CCC planned to make Ch­agua­nas the cap­i­tal of tra­di­tion­al mas.

He said there would not be any com­pe­ti­tion for tra­di­tion­al mas in Ch­agua­nas this year but all bands cross­ing the stage would be giv­en a sub­ven­tion to en­cour­age greater par­tic­i­pa­tion

Some 400 po­lice and army per­son­nel would be de­ployed in Cen­tral over the Car­ni­val week­end.

New head of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion ASP Richard Smith said sev­er­al con­tin­gency plans are in place to deal with trou­ble mak­ers and per­sons bring­ing con­cealed weapons in­to the Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions.