The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has closed down all three of its public swimming pools for maintenance and review after a seven-year-old boy drowned in one of them on Tuesday, April 4. The boy, identified as Teja Gupta, would come for swimming lessons every day to the My Ladies Park swimming pool in Periamet. However, he drowned in the pool during class on Tuesday, and while instructors rushed in to save him, he was later declared dead. The GCC said that My Ladies Park swimming pool has been closed along with two other pools at Marina and Tiruvottiyur.
Times of India reported that the other two swimming pools were closed for maintenance work already. One of the supervisors who spoke to Times of India said that there is an issue with the electricity cable at the Marina swimming pool. He added that the tiles in the pool are also broken and the water tank has been damaged. Meanwhile, the Tiruvottiyur swimming pool is facing a water supply problem. The GCC has asked the supervisors of the respective pools to fix these problems before reopening them to the public.
GCC officials told Times of India that they are unsure when the pools would be opened again. However, they added that stringent age restrictions will be put in place once it opens to the public. There will also be additional rules regarding use of life jackets, role of instructors and lifeguards, they said.