HYDERABAD: Bhagyanagar Ganesh Utsav Samithi (BGUS) has decided not to follow the norms prescribed the city police for getting permission for erecting Ganesh pandals.
BGUS general secretary Bhagwanth Rao, after attending a review meeting with home minister Nayani Narasimha Reddy at the Secretariat here on Tuesday, told reporters that the police put several conditions including obtaining affidavit from the organisers of pandals.
“Even before purchasing a Ganesh idol, the police wanted to know in the prescribed format in which vehicle the idol will be transported, the registration number of the vehicle and details of the vehicle’s owner and driver,” he said Bhagwanth Rao said the police wanted the organisers to furnish information in the form whether they had obtained permission from the landowner to erect the pandal. “If an idol is installed on a public road, who has to give the permission?” he asked.
When he raised the matter in the meeting, the minister said it was a public land. “If the public use it for a public function, there is no need for permission,” the BGUS general secretary said.
Nayani Narasimha Reddy told reporters later that all arrangements were in place for the Ganesh Chaturth and the festival would start on September 17.
BHAGWANTH OBSTRUCTED
When the BGUS leaders arrived at the Secretariat on invitation from the government, police asked them to go inside through the visitors entrance and blocked their entry through CM’s entrance. When BHagwanth Rao and others proceeded towards the visitors entry, police prevented them. The BGUS representatives left the place and were about return when some officials apologised to them and asked them to attend the meeting. But the BGUS leaders insisted that a responsible person from the government invite them to the meeting. Then excise minister T Padma Rao accompanied the BGUS representatives to the conference hall in the C-Block.