PUNE: Pune Ganeshotsav 2023 | The facility of mobile immersion tanks introduced during the coronavirus pandemic to ensure social distancing, will not be made available this year. The administration is thinking of providing more fixed tanks and idol donation centres. A decision on this issue is likely to be taken soon.
The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) is making continuous efforts to organise an environment-friendly Ganesh festival. Hence, the civic body is giving importance to setting up of artificial tanks and idol donation centres.
The initiative is getting a good response from locals and Ganesh mandals. Containers are also kept for collecting flower waste. The idols immersed in tanks and collected at donation centres are immersed in a mine at Wagholi. After the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, it became necessary to maintain social distancing. Hence, the civic body had started mobile immersion tanks. This had helped the citizens to immerse their Ganesh idols in the tanks. This initiative continued in 2021 and 2022.
Meanwhile, the administration is thinking of discontinuing this initiative from this year. After the reduction in coronavirus infections, the citizens are keen that the festival is celebrated in the usual manner. Citizens are turning their back to mobile tanks since the facility of collecting floral waste and donation facility of idols is available at the public tanks constructed for immersion.
The administration has to allocate separate manpower for mobile immersion tanks, their schedule, routes etc. Sometimes, this creates confusion. Last year, 150 mobile tanks were deployed in the city involving an expenditure of ₹1.5 crore. A senior civic official said that the administration is thinking of constructing public tanks at places where there is requirement.
Idols collected from immersion tanks and donation centres are finally immersed in a mine at Wagholi. These mines are privately owned and the PMC pays money to mine owners. However, this year, the administration is doing a follow-up to ensure that the district administration’s mine at Wagholi is made available for immersion.
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