The air-conditioning ducts at Harivansh Tana Bhagat Indoor Stadium in Ranchi on Wednesday. Picture by Hardeep Singh

Ranchi, Feb. 2: It seems that the 34th National Games will prove to be too hot to handle.

Thanks to an elaborate air-conditioning system, the indoor stadiums, offices and VIP rooms at the Mega Sports Complex, Hotwar, will take at least 12 hours to cool down before visitors can be allowed to take their place.

This is because cool air generated in the huge chilling plant will take considerable time to travel to the stadiums and rooms through 8km long pipes. Simplex Constructions, which constructed the sports complex, has installed the plant with the total capacity of 1,210 tonne refrigeration (TR). The equipment has been imported from Dubai-based Emirates Trading Association.

“First, the pipes will have to cool down before air passes to the stadium interiors and rooms. Hence, the entire process has to be start at least 12 hours before visitors take their seats inside the stadiums to watch different events,” said D. Chakraborty, a senior official of Simplex Constructions and the project in-charge of Mega Sports Complex.

The interiors of the indoor stadiums — Ganpat Rai Indoor Stadium, Harvansh Tanabhagat Indoor Stadium and Veer Budhu Bhagat Indoor Stadium — and the office and VIP rooms at Sidho Kanhu Velodrome Stadium, Tikait Umrao Shooting Range, Tennis Stadium and Athletics Stadiums have been connected with the centrally monitored air-conditioning system.

The mammoth chilling system can bring down the temperature to 17°C. And no matter how huge the crowd is, the system can maintain the temperature. Such air-conditioning systems exist at the stadiums in Delhi, Guwahati, and Hyderabad among others.

This apart, the fire fighting and power supply systems are also automatic.

The construction company has installed 12 generators, which will start functioning automatically within three minutes of power supply stopping from the three sub-stations around the venue. Upon restoration of supply, the generators will again stop functioning automatically.

Of the 12 generators, five have a capacity of 1250KV and seven with 500KV capacity bought from Jetta Generators.

As for the fire fighting set-up, all rooms, stadiums and the administrative building have been fitted with small pipes, where water flows round the clock. “The moment the temperature of a particular place in the stadium or room reaches 60°C, the fuse link in the pipes will break and the pipes will automatically start sprinkling water to douse the fire,” said Chakraborty.

Engineers of the construction company have also laid huge pipes containing water outside every stadium, as they are directly connected to the water tank built near the sports venue. The tank gets supply from Kanke reservoir. Water from these pipes can also be used by firemen to douse the fire.

A whopping sum of Rs 120 crore has been spent on the air-conditioning, fire safety and power supply set-ups.