Thousands of devotees performed Chhath Puja at Rabindra Sarobar on Tuesday with the administration seemingly an ally in the mass-scale violation of an order by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) prohibiting any such activity in the sprawling lake.

A police team stood at the main entrance but didn’t stop anyone walking in with a basket of offerings to make as part of Chhath rituals. Even noisy firecrackers being burst by some revellers couldn’t break their reverie.

The arrangements along the bank of the lake, including halogen lamps to illuminate the area after dusk and ladders every few metres to make stepping into the water easier, suggested that the beeline of devotees wasn’t exactly unanticipated.

The Calcutta Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), the custodian of Rabindra Sarobar, allegedly hadn’t issued any instruction to its staff to block the entrances. A security guard wearing a CMDA jacket said: “We haven’t received any instruction to stop anyone from performing puja rituals.”

A senior official said the agency had “informed” the police about the NGT’s order. “We didn’t make any arrangements (for Chhath) this year. We wrote to the police and informed them about the order.”

Ajoy Prasad, the deputy commissioner–II (headquarters), was in charge of police deployment at Rabindra Sarobar on Tuesday. Metro tried to contact him for comment but he was unavailable.

The environment department said it wasn’t responsible for enforcing the NGT’s order. “What could the environment department have done about the surge of Chhath Puja crowds at Rabindra Sarobar? It is not an enforcement agency. It is for the police to ensure that an order is adhered to in its true spirit,” said a senior official, requesting that he be not named.

Subrata Gupta, the urban development secretary, said: “I will ask the CMDA what it did to comply with the NGT’s order”.

The CMDA functions under the urban development department.