The civic administration is currently busy battling the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. But while doing this it seems that Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has forgotten to make arrangements for Ganesh visarjan.
The 10-day long Ganesh festival began on Saturday. While most of the people install the deity for 10 days, some do visarjan on the very second day and some do it after three days and some after 5 days. Also this year no proper attention has been given towards the sale of plaster of Paris (PoP) idols which may be a matter of concern from the pollution point of view.
Usually for the festival the civic administration start preparing for the visarjans 2 weeks before the festival. However, this year it seems the attention is much more towards the COVID battle as very few visarjan artificial immersion tanks have been installed in the city. Moreover, the water bodies are also not barricaded or sealed to prevent people from immersing the idols in them as it is done every year. And now, with water bodies not barricaded, the city can experience a corona explosion after Ganesh visarjans.
It is worth mentioning here that in the wake of coronavirus scare, NMC has already banned huge Idols of Ganpati and has also prohibited large processions for visarjans. But that does not apply to indiaviduals. Hence, crowding near water bodies is almost certain.
Hence, ill-preparedness of NMC for the Ganesh festival can prove disastrous for the city. The municipal administration needs to act fast and install barricades at all the waterbodies in the city to prevent people from gathering there for immersion of Ganesh idols.