Baby ponds ignored, PoP idols immersed in Hyd lakes

Hyderabad: Despite the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) reviving 74 artificial ponds for Ganesh idols, their immersion in lakes and water bodies continues unabashed across the city.
When TOI took a tour around the city, it found idols along with other pooja paraphernalia floating on lakes — right from Raidurg to Sainikpuri.
According to Enforcement Vigilance & Disaster Management, as of Sunday morning, 17,779 clay and PoP idols have been immersed in lakes and artificial ponds.
At the Kapra lake , locals claimed that idols are being immersed directly into the lake, often with very few officials to monitor the process.
“After persistent requests, officials have been stationed around the lake and attempting to divert all immersions towards baby ponds. However, concerns persist about taller idols ending up in the lake due to baby ponds’ limited depth of,” said a volunteer from the Kapra revival group.
Visits to other lakes around the city also revealed similar scenes. At Malkam Cheruvu, flowers, fruits, leaves, and plastic from immersions were found piled along the banks. Though there were a couple of dustbins at the sites, they were already overflowing with waste.
Even at Hussainsagar, people seemed oblivious to the high court rule of using baby ponds to immerse PoP idols. Ajitesh Sambari, a techie from Madhapur, who was there to immerse a PoP Ganesha idol at the lake said: “For the past eight years we have been immersing idols in Hussainsagar. So, we did not want to break our tradition. I have heard about the artificial ponds, but am not sure where it is and how it works.”
While emphasising this lack of awareness among the public is a serious concern, environmentalists also find fault with the concept of building ponds that are only 10 to 13 feet deep. “The foremost thing that is hindering the initiative is unawareness among the people driven by lack of promotion of the artificial ponds,” said Madhulika Chaoudhary, an environmentalist.
While civic officials said that they are trying their best to arrest pollution of lakes, they admitted to the limited capacity of baby ponds being a hurdle. “We are making sure that idols up to 10 feet are immersed in the baby pond, but the rest (even PoP) is going into the main lakes,” said EV&DM inspector Bal Reddy.