People immersing Ganesh Idol at Hussain sagar lake in Hyderabad (Photo | Express)
HYDERABAD: After Kapra lake, it was the turn of Neknampur lake’s citizen initiative to get dismantled by the authorities for Ganesh Chaturthi. This after a gate, that secured the entrance to the lake, was removed by police authorities on Sunday to facilitate traffic movement.
“It is very discouraging to have the gate removed. Already a lot of people are heading to the lake bed and trying to immerse the idols, we have to now stand there all day diverting the public to use the immersion ghat. The problem is that there is no coordination between GHMC and police.” noted Madhulika Chaudhary, a local activist.
Though the lake has a large immersion pond, the habit of immersing it into the lake has posed a risk in degenerating its water quality, which has had some of the best indicators this year, due to various pilot projects like floating plants for bioremediation.
In January, the citizens had built a gate for the lake to avoid illegal dumping of debris and destruction of flora and fauna. They now take turns to man the lake and prevent PoP idols, toxic paints from spoiling the lake.
