Go for small idols, NMC appeals to Ganesh mandals

Nagpur: Taking a much-needed step to save the city’s lakes, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has appealed to the Ganesh mandals to not go for tall idols.
The civic body, on Wednesday, held a discussion with about 99 mandal organizers of Nagpur to come up with solutions for avoiding pollution of lakes. NMC’s health officer (sanitation) Dr Pradip Dasarwar said that the civic body has appealed to the mandals to opt smaller idols.

“If the height of the idols is around three-to-four feet, they can be immersed in artificial tanks and not lakes. Rather than engaging in a competition of keeping tall idols, mandals should prioritize in saving lakes,” said Dasarwar.

He added that the civic body plans to increase the number of artificial tanks to 250 this year against the 200 tanks last year. “While 2 lakh idols were immersed in artificial tanks last year, 800 idols were immersed in Futala lake alone,” said Dasarwar.

Like last year, the civic body will be decentralizing the one-window system to ease permissions for mandals.

During the discussion, environmentalists highlighted the degrading condition of city’s lakes. “As plaster of paris (PoP) idols contain heavy metals like copper, chromium, cadmium, nickel, lead and mercury, they are detrimental to the aquatic ecosystem. Also to avoid depletion of dissolved oxygen in the lakes, the mandals should make a rule of not immersing nirmalyas,” said Kaustav Chatterjee, founder of Green Vigil Foundation.

Chatterjee further suggested that NMC should fix a height for idols. “Any mandal who wishes to go beyond this height should be charged an amount, which can be used by NMC for cleaning lakes later,” he said.

A day earlier, a delegation of local idol makers along with corporator Abha Pande met NMC commissioner Virendra Singh, demanding strict action against sale of PoP idols. The delegation pointed out that the traditional sculptors who are making mud idols since ages, have become unemployed due to high demand of PoP idols.

“NMC is shelling out lakhs of rupees to combat the pollution caused by PoP idols and in vain. Still, the civic body is not asking stringent measures against the sale of such idols,” the delegation stated.