Vijayawada: Ganesh Chaturthi is round the corner and the festival committees in the city are busy arranging pandals with huge idols of Lord Ganesh made of Plaster of Paris and chemical colours. The festival committees are in a competition to install bigger idols as they consider it a mark of prestige, caring a hoot for the environment. In such a situation, the Vijayawada city police have launched a campaign promoting installation of eco-friendly Ganesh idols.
With the announcement of the Capital city near Vijayawada, the culture of celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi by arranging pandals and mandaps has caught pace. The number of Ganesh pandals likely to be installed has increased to 1,200 this year. Despite requests by the environmentalists not to go for PoP idols, festival committees have been found to be investing huge sums of money on the same as it would appear more attractive than the clay idols.
“Ganesh Chaturthi is a festival of joy and we express our devotion and respect by arranging huge, colorful idols of Ganesha. Clay idols are not colorful and they are not available in huge size, said M. Lakshmana Rao, organiser of pandal at Gandhinagar. Paryavarana Parirakshana Samiti, an NGO, which started the campaign on eco-friendly Ganesha made available huge idols made of clay and coir at a cheaper price and it was inaugurated by city police commissioner D. Gautam Sawang on Wednesday.
Raghuram Maguluri president of Paryavarana Parirakshana Samiti, said that response for clay Ganesha was very nominal in city and majority of them were still going with chemical colors which were harming environment. Many Organizations were arranging huge idols by spending lakhs of money polluting mother earth and ignoring clay idols which were available at cheaper price, he said. “Protecting mother earth is our responsibility and using clay Ganesha was our age old tradition. Everyone should arrange clay idols to stop pollution and obtaining permission was must for arranging pandals,” says D. Gautam Sawang city police commissioner.
