Immersion ends, clean-up exercise begins in Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: Immersion of Ganesh idols, which spilt over to the second day, was successfully completed on Saturday with thousands of idols being immersed in the Hussainsagar at NTR Marg Road, Tank Bund and People’s Plaza as well as the baby pond set up at Sanjeevaiah Park.

Even as the idols were being immersed, the GHMC began clearing the remnants of the festivities by deploying additional personnel and machinery. The Ganesh immersion generated over 7,335 tonnes of garbage, according to a GHMC official. Likewise, the HMDA took up a cleaning exercise, removing idol remains and pooja material dumped in the water bodies in the city, including the Hussainsagar.

All idol remains, pooja material and other waste material would be ultimately removed from the lake with the help of additional personnel and machinery and shifted to dumping yards. A large number of sanitation workers were pressed into service on the centralised immersion routes as well as at NTR Marg Road, Tank Bund Road, People’s Plaza and Sanjeevaiah Park to clear the waste from the roads and footpaths.

The GHMC also pressed excavators, earthmovers, mini tippers and 10-tonne capacity trucks to shift the removed waste. For clearing the garbage, apart from the 330 regular vehicles, the GHMC and HMDA pressed 100 additional vehicles into service, apart from 40 regular and 27 additional JCBs.As many as 89,505 idols were immersed in artificial ponds, including baby, excavated and portable ponds set up by the GHMC in various parts of the city.

On its part, the HMDA began removing idols, steel frames and pooja material by deploying workers and
machinery, including JCBs, trash collectors, amphibian excavators, aquatic weed harvester-cum-trash collector and an amphibious long boom excavator from the Hussainsagar.

Officials said that the exercise would continue round the clock. Heavy vehicles and special sanitation teams were deployed near water bodies to remove the piled material. GHMC officials said that reasons for the idol immersion extending to the second day were due to the incessant rains on Friday and Saturday.