The 10-day Ganesh festival will begin on August 31 this year for which the BMC has started preparations to ensure smooth celebrations in the city. The civic body has issued guidelines to strictly immerse Ganesha idols made of plaster of paris (PoP) in artificial ponds.
Every year, the civic body constructs temporary artificial ponds for idol immersion and undertakes tree-trimming and road repairing works.
A meeting was held at the F south ward office of Mumbai on Monday where Zone 2 deputy commissioner Harshad Kale, said the BMC will completely ban buying and selling of POP idols in Mumbai from next year. Only environment-friendly shadu clay idols will be allowed.
The festival will be celebrated this year after the lifting of restrictions in wake of Covid 19 and hence, as a special case, the civic body has allowed using POP made Ganesh idols. However, the idols will have to be immersed in artificial ponds.
Similarly, idols should have a clear mention of PoP to identify them easily. Kale also appealed to the citizens not to install idols of more than two feet for household celebrations and further asked the Ganesh mandals to keep the height minimum.
Kale also took reviewed the one window permission system besides, reviewing the permissions given by the licenses department and fire brigade.
Assistant municipal commissioner, S ward, AjitKumar Ambi, assistant commissioner, P north, Mahesh Patil, representatives of the police department, Brihanmumbai Ganesh Utsav Samiti, Mumbai Suburbs Ganesh Utsav Samiti and members of idols makers attended the meeting.
