The final procession of Ganesh idols immersion which began early on Thursday morning amid continuous drizzle came to an end by about 1 p.m. on Friday afternoon when the last idol was immersed on the Tank Bund side.
The entire city police machinery, personnel of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and other related departments heaved a sigh of relief over the successful and peaceful conduct of the festivities during which they also had to tackle the Bakrid festival.
While the municipal corporation put the Ganesh idols immersed in the Hussainsagar Lake on the Tank Bund side and on the Necklace Road side at about 5,610; in rest of the lakes such as Saroornagar, Kapra, Cherlapally and newly formed ponds about 5,000 more idols were estimated to have been immersed.
Cumulatively, close to 56,910 idols were estimated to have been immersed and this was all thanks to the coordinated action by all the departments concerned, said Mayor B. Rammohan, GHMC Commissioner B. Janardhan Reddy, Police Commissioner M. Mahender Reddy and Deputy Mayor Fasiuddin later at a press conference.
“The event was being followed worldwide through internet and television channels and it was a good exhibition of our culture of multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-cultural society. Despite heavy rains we managed to ensure that everything went off incident free. Arrangements such as mobile toilets, drinking water outlets and others made for the visitors at the immersion sites helped,” said Dr. Janardhan Reddy.
Community policing rather than posting constables at each and every pandal too played a big role in the smooth conduct. One of the key features of this year’s festival was to convince the Ganesh Utsav Samithi to immerse the giant Khairatabad Ganesh first rather than wait for midnight and accordingly, it was done on Thursday itself.
The Mayor said there were an appreciable number of clay Ganeshas this year and efforts would be made to increase the number next year. The civic body which usually mops up about 4,000 metric tonnes of garbage everyday, had to lift 1,400 MTs more on account of the procession. About 162 special teams, more JCBs and trucks were pressed into service to keep the roads clean. The Police Commissioner said that 35,000 police personnel including from neighbouring States oversaw the security.
Meeting postponed
Mayor B. Rammohan announced on Friday that the proposed general body meeting of the GHMC elected council will be held on September19 or Monday at 10.30 a.m. instead of Saturday (September17) in view of more rains forecast by the Met Department in the twin cities.
CM’s pat for officials
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao expressed happiness over the peaceful conduct of the festival, and congratulated the official machinery as well as the Utsav Committee for their respective efforts.
