It was immersion day for thousands of household Ganapati idols in the city yesterday, but there were few takers for the eco-friendly way of visarjan.
It was immersion day for thousands of household Ganapati idols in the city yesterday, but there were few takers for the eco-friendly way of visarjan. Donating idols to NGOs for recycling or other non-polluting methods like immersion in tanks instead of the river were ignored by the vast majority.
IS ANYBODY LISTENING? MBA student Harshit Varma holds up a placard
urging people to immerse their idols in tanks instead of the river;
the scene under SM Joshi Bridge as a large number of household
Ganapati idols were immersed in the Mutha yesterday.
The sixth day of Ganeshotsav sees almost a lakh idols are immersed in the city. This is approximately 30 per cent of the total number of idols immersed on different days during the 10-dayu00a0 festival.
Shabana Diler, from Swach, said, "Three lakh idols are immersed in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad during the festival. The immersion is done in the Mula, the Mutha and the Pavana, which pollutes these rivers. This includes public and domestic mandals."
Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) Ganapati Immersion Observation Committee's honorary consultant Ajay Vaishampayan said, " The number of idols immersed is at least 1.5 lakh in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad. The highest number number of idols are immersed on the sixth day -- at least 50,000. On the second day about 1,000 idols were immersed.
The maximum number of idols are immersed on the last day."Pankaj Kataria of EcoExist said, "PCMC collects over 10,000 domestic idols every year during immersion.
I don't see any change in this pattern this year."Dr Narendra Dabholkar, founder of Mahan Andha Shraddha Nirmulan Samiti (an anti-superstition committee), said, "As per the Supreme Court ruling, people have to use the immersion tanks instead of polluting the river. There is no need to make announcements for donating the idols for reuse. So we have stopped the practice of accepting the Ganesh idols."u00a0
Awareness drives
Awareness campaigns by youth groups and environmental organisations have tried to bring about a change in the mindset of people and persuade them to immerse their murtis in tanks.
Swach is one of the NGOs attempting to do this. Sukhdev Lokhande, a member of the NGO, said, "Till 5 pm, no one had donated any idol at this site (Baba Bhide pool)."
Young people from the Rotract Club also try to solve pollution problem by encouraging eco-friendly visarjan. Harshit Varma, an MBA student, even stood with a placard with a message urging people to go 'the tank way' to immerse their murtis and not to immerse them in the river.
"Ours is an institution-based club. Our main motto is to control pollution and create social awareness towards this purpose," he said.
His friend Supriya Gaikwad was also with him. "People are going to the river but we are trying to make them change their mind and head for the tank," she said. "Even ifu00a0 weu00a0 bring about a change in 5 per cent of the people, we will think our purpose achieved!"
The PMC has also done its bit by constructing tanks and urging citizens to use them for immersion. Volunteers are present at the tanks and as soon as a Ganesh idol is brought in, they record it and help the people immerse it.
Sayali Joshi, a student from Shaniwar Peth, was there at the tank near the Patwardhan Samadhi in the Nene Ghat area with her family -- father, mother, uncles, aunts and cousins. She said, "Immersing in the river means pollution. Our family has been observing this puja for the last 20 years or so. We feel that we will help in some way to reduce pollution."
Satish Pathak from Kasba Peth also believes that "the water here is cleaner compared to the river". There were people who were doing tank immersions for the first time. Ajit Deshpande, a bank employee from Shaniwar Peth, said "We are doing this for the first time. Earlier we immersed in the river. But in the city the river is already polluted. In the tank the idol gets dissolved and later the mud can be used for something else."u00a0u00a0
Ibrahim Sheikh, a PMC employee at the Baba Bhide pool, said, "In the past 1 hour, we have registered 45 idols that have been immersed."
But sadly, rivers remained the crowd pullers. Vandana Kale and her son Mohan were at the Mutha to immerse their idol from Ravivar Peth. "We have been doing this for many years. We do the puja at home and come here," Kale said.
Some people just did not know how to go about donating donate their idol. Gopi Shewale, who was at the river for visarjan with his wife, brothers and cousins, said, "We could not find out where to donate our murti, so we have come here."
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