This year’s Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Hyderabad is all set to be drastically different in terms of arrangements for the immersion of the idols. Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has started initiating measures to implement the orders of the Hyderabad High Court to ensure that the immersion of thousands of Ganesh idols does not result in much pollution or harm to the water bodies.
Keeping in view the successful model of Bengaluru, the civic body in Hyderabad was taking up the works to create 10 special ponds within the historic Hussain Sagar lake specially for the immersion of the idols.
Each of these ponds will be 44 meters in size and 13 feet deep to ensure proper immersion of the idols of various sizes. The plans also include immediate clearing of the debris from these ponds and also releasing them fresh water by clearing out the used water.
GHMC officials said that similar arrangements will also be made at nine other ponds in the city and surrounding areas. Though the Ganesh idols were immersed in as many as 44 lakes in the city and its outskirts, only ten have been chosen for creating these special ponds in them for immersion this year. The State Government has allocated Rs6.95 crore for these works.
Simultaneously in accordance with the High Court directions, the State Government and the GHMC were also trying to create awareness among the people and the organisers of the festival to reduce the size of the idols to the possible extent and not to use the harmful chemicals and paints in preparation of the idols and prefer the use of mud and bio degradable material.
Hyderabad witnesses one of the biggest Ganesh processions in the country with thousands of idols in various shapes and sizes, the biggest being the Khairatabad mandap idol of 58 feet. last year as many as 22,000 idols, many of them 20 to 25 feet height were immersed in the Hussain Sagar lake.
A case seeking restriction on the immersion in Hussain Sagar was pending before the High Court for the past many years. The petitioners, including environmental activists had sought the intervention of the court on the grounds that the immersion was adding to the pollution in already stinking lake. Though the Court had been issuing interim orders and directions around the festival time every year, this time the orders have come well in advance giving ample time to the officials to make necessary arrangements.
However it remains to be seen how the BJP-VHP controlled Bhagyanagar Ganesh Utsav Samiti will respond to these Government measures.