HYDERABAD: With a festive mood enveloping the entire city, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has begun readying three categories of artificial ponds over the next one week for the immersion of Lord Ganesha idols which are less than six feet in height.
The portable prefabricated fibre-reinforced plastic water ponds, temporary excavation water tanks, and baby ponds across the twin cities are being set up. The objective is to ensure that the existing water bodies would be spared to the extent possible immersion of Plaster of Paris (PoP) idols.
As many as 24 portable water tanks, 23 excavated water tanks and seven baby ponds, totalling 74, have been readied. GHMC officials and sanitation staff have been drafted for duties at these water ponds to receive the idols from the devotees and immerse them in these artificial water ponds.
The civic body wanted the devotees to immerse small and medium Ganesha idols in the temporary water ponds and cooperate in environmental protection. The help of local police is proposed to be taken to guide the pandal organisers and individual devotees to immerse the small and medium-sized idols at these artificial water ponds without any difficulties.
GHMC officials told TNIE that the exercise of establishing portable and excavated water tanks has been completed and for baby ponds, minor repairs and cleaning is being undertaken and once they are cleaned they will be filled with fresh water. The initiative to set up artificial ponds is aimed to ensure that devotees need not travel long distances for immersion, but also avoid crowding during the festive period.
The portable water pond is of 20 metres X 10 metres with a depth of 1.35 to 1.50 metres where idols up to four feet height can be immersed in them with ease, while the excavated tanks will be six feet deep and then cover the base and the sides with a black polythene cover sheet, to ensure that the water and pollutants do not seep into the ground. Once the rituals are over, the immersion material and puja leftovers will be segregated and taken to the landfill for treatment and disposal.
After the completion of the festivities, portable ponds will be dismantled and will be kept in storerooms for use for the following years while the excavated ponds will be levelled to the surface of the ground, they added.
