HYDERABAD: While Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) constructed 15 more baby ponds this year to cut down pollution in Hussainsagar during Ganesh idol immersion, it is yet to be clear as to how useful this move would be. Last year ten baby ponds were constructed for immersion.
As of now, there is a total of 25 such small tanks at different lakes across the city so that the Ganesh idols can be immersed there itself and are not brought to Hussainsagar.
As per data recorded by the Telangana State Pollution Control Board (TSPCB) of Hussainsagar during Ganesh festivities last year, the water quality took a heavy beating during the festivities, knocking down the dissolved oxygen (DO) content in lake water by more than half.
For example, at the idol immersion site near Lumbini Park the DO level went down from 8.6 mg/l before the start of the festival to 2.4 mg/l on the last day of Ganesh idol immersion. Not just this but various other water parameters like Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) and Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) also worsened apart from adding toxic heavy metals to the lake water. When compared to the values from 2015 when there were no baby ponds, the water quality parameters in 2016 after the construction of baby ponds was not much different. For example, BOD value of Hussainsagar water at Necklace Road at the end of Ganesh festival was 22 mg/l in 2016 as compared to 24 mg/l in 2015 and BOD at platform-2 immersion site was 29 mg/l in 2016 as compared to 28 mg/l in 2015.
The state government, however, should take a cue from Goa where sale, manufacturing, transportation, use and even entry of plaster of Paris Ganesh idols was banned. When contacted, BV Subba Rao, founder member of Save Our Urban Lakes (SOUL) said, “The state government is blindly imitating the baby ponds model of Bengaluru though the scale of Ganesh festivities in the two cities is different. There is no provision for water to get cleared at the baby ponds if there is excess rainfall which will cause inundation problems. There should be a scientific approach to this problem in consultation with expert bodies like EPTRI,” he said.