The district administration and police have come up with a series of checks for Ganesh Chaturthi scheduled tomorrow to ensure an incident-free festival. The steps have been taken keeping in mind the communal tension in the past over derogatory social media postings.

The police have been asked to provide adequate security in all sensitive areas and review the condition of existing CCTVs. “We have stepped up security to ensure a peaceful festival. We have identified more than 200 sensitive points in the city where adequate police will be deployed to keep an eye on anti-social elements,” said an official.

Meanwhile, the artisans are busy decorating the idols in the best possible ways to be installed in the pandals where the public will come in large numbers to pay obeisance to the goddess.

The festival fetched the sculptors a good scope to earn livelihood after passing a remarkable period of idle time round the year. Most of such artistes usually witness a dull time and live in economic hardship despite the fact that they had the art of making idols of goddess cherished over generations with a great passion.

Ganesh Kumar, an idol maker in Kadma for the last 45 years is creating idols in a traditional and skilled way.

Kumar explained, “The basic rule to be followed is that the soil to be used in idol making should come from a sacred water body. The clay artisans work hard for several months to create the wonderful idols and images of various gods and goddesses during the festive season. Bamboos are used to construct the basic frame which provides a skeleton character to the idol. Then the structure is made using straw and jute ropes and strings to keep it in place.”

He further added “These artisans are grouped for different functions because the creation of idols by a single artist would become an extremely tiring and lengthy exercise. So, some of them get engaged in making the skeleton from bamboo and straw while other groups prepare clay and apply it. The most skilled of workers make the head, palms and feet of the idol. The application of clay is done in three steps.” Idol makers in the city get busy giving the final touch to the idols with a lot of enthusiasm when the festival nears.