HYDERABAD: What happens to the coconuts that you offer to Ganeshas? They lie on the roadside along with other garbage and then, they get recycled into coconut oil and find its way back into your kitchen! Around this season, armies of rag pickers wait across immersion points just to collect broken coconut shells. Their primary target points are footpaths along the Hussainsagar lake, the largest immersion point in the city. Right from NTR Gardens to the Tank Bund, they wait in tents erected right next to each of the 38-odd cranes set up to immerse large idols. “I sit here starting from 7 pm, that’s when devotees start coming,” says one ragpicker sitting opposite the NTR Gardens.
“They do a small puja before the immersion and break coconuts. We collect those pieces and sell them to oil manufacturers. It’s good money,” he says. The manufacturers, mostly located in Khairatabad and Miyapur, pay anything up to `30 per kilogram of coconut pieces. Ragpickers claim that 1 litre of oil needs flesh from at least 3 kilograms of coconut.
Considering that over 1 lakh devotees are expected to immerse idols at Tank Bund this Ganesh Chathurthi, lakhs of rupees worth business is likely to happen here. This does not take into account the idols that are less than 5 feet and unregistered ones, which total up to an additional 20 per cent.
That doesn’t mean it’s an easy affair. A lot of ‘people skills’ are needed for the job. The coconut pickers have a deal with crane assistants hired by the GHMC, because they are at the centre of all the action, helping revellers and devotees unload and reload the idols. “So many coconuts go waste,” says one crane operator. “Instead of letting them be thrown away to rot, we hand it over to these people,” he says.
On an average, these pickers collect up to 15-20 kg in one single night, which fetches them about `600.
The million dollar question, however, is, is the oil generated from these pieces hygienic? Though it’s not a crime to avoid wastage, these rinds do spend a small amount of time on the dirty roadsides. Pickers were also seen rummaging through decaying garbage for old coconut rinds they might have missed!