Residents of Latur donate all Ganesh idols

Aurangabad: People responded positively to the Latur district administration and civic body’s appeal to avoid immersion of Ganesh idols in drinking water resources and instead hand them over to the administration in view of the water scarcity situation.

The residents took out processions with traditional enthusiasm and handed over the idols to the five collection centres in different areas.

The process of shifting idols from five centres to Kolpa village, 4 km from the Latur city, took several hours. By late Friday evening, as many as 28,775 idols were placed in the field in rows with due respect.

“We had requested the Ganesh Mandals during a meeting to either immerse the idols in their homes or hand them over to the administration,’’ Latur district collector G Srikant told TOI.

“The idols can either be reused or recycled. We have urged the idol makers to take the POP and shadu clay idols for recycling,’’ he said.

“Ganesh mandals have been urged to minimize the height of idols next year and continue with the practice of handing them over. Scarcity or no scarcity, they have now decided to continue with this practice. I am preparing a report to be sent to the government with suggestion to ban the use of PoP itself in the making of idols,’’ he said.

Vijay Chokhane, the Latur water works engineer, said the administration had provided five idol collection points in different parts of the city.