Mumbai : Going a step beyond the BMC’s prescribed precautionary measures during Ganesh idol immersions, R (South) ward in the Kandivali West area independently organised a seminar on disaster control and management.
The civic ward officials collaborated with the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), fire brigade and local police officials to organise a demonstration about safety measures to follow during immersions. It is the first time that a ward has undertaken such a programme this year.
Present for the occasion were several local Ganesh mandal representatives and students of the Niranjan Majithiya Degree College, where the programme was organised.
Apart from the seminar, volunteers and NDRF officials also staged a live demonstration of an accident and the procedural rescue operation.
Assistant Commissioner of R/S ward, SR Gaikwad said: “We demonstrated some simple techniques that citizens are not aware of. For instance, if a life guard approaches a drowning person, the first reaction is to put one’s arms around him while facing him and hold on tightly, which can be dangerous as it only pulls the life guard further into the water. The ideal technique is to go piggy back.”
Kandivali West has the Dahanukarwadi pond, which sees devotees in large numbers for idol immersions.
Gaikwad said: “On the second day, over a thousand idols were immersed in this pond. Similarly, on the fifth and the 10th day, we see close to 10,000 devotees flooding the area for visarjan.”
Eeshanpriya MS
