After the festivals of Dussehra and Navratri concluded with much fanfare about two days ago, rivers and lakes display a sorry state of affair once again following idol immersions that were installed and worshipped in various Puja Pandals across the city. Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) has restricted the immersion of idols in all lakes and water sources of city and arranged detailed immersion programmer at selected water sources. Traditionally, the idols were made of mud and painted with natural colours but a few people also installed PoP made idols that are harmful for rivers and thus for the environment.

 

On Sunday, ‘The Hitavada’ team found heap of idol remains at Khatlapura River. Several small idols and puja leftovers including plastics were immersed in the river and these flowers and other non biodegradable garbage were flowing accumulated at the banks of the river posing a threat to the environment. People were not allowed to immerse the idols at Shahpura, Upper Lake, Prempura ghat. BMC officials informed that at least ten tonnes of flowers, coconut were offered to Goddess Durga in a day at more than 500 Pandals setup in the State Capital during Navratri. Using such religious offerings, the BMC had said to make organic fertilizers and incense sticks. During nine days of festival, four vehicles were collecting flowers, lemon-coconut from puja pandals and took them to a plant located at AIIMS-Adampur Cantonment. The manufactured organic manure are being used in the parks. The teams of the BMC had conducted a survey regarding the tableaux and pandals in the city. The organic manure made from flowers will be used for municipal parks. The process of making compost from the material collected during Ganeshotsav is going on. However, with BMC working so hard to reduce threat, people seem to ignore the urgency to conserve environment and continue to throw the puja material and non-degradable material into the water bodies. When will this change?