THANE: With inflation taking a toll on essential commodities, celebration of festivals has also become a pricey affair.
Celebrations in large mandals and medium-sized ones to those at homes come with a price and they are hitting the roof.
Ganesh celebrations, in today’s times, come with music, decorations, transportation and volunteers. Besides, the prices of idols have also gone up, especially those that are made with environment-friendly material.
Abhijeet Panchal, a member of the Thanyacha Raja Ganpati Mandal at Kisan Nagar, which will display a replica of the Shanivarwada Mahal housing a 17ft Ganpati idol this year, said, “There is a cost hike in everything these days. While transportation cost, guards and CCTV cameras usually rise marginally, the prices of idols, decorations and the rest increase with each passing year.”
Nilesh More, member of Mahatma Phule Nagar chawl’s Parivartan Mitra Mandal, said, “Even though our security, transportation, maintenance and even part of the setting up of the mandal and food arrangement are handled by youngsters in our area, we have to bear the increasing cost of the idol, decorations, lighting and electricity every year.”
Though housing societies do not splurge on festivities, the ‘culture’ factor seems hard to skip.
“The growing expenditure during festivals is one of the main reasons for the annual changes in our society budgets. While the basic facilities essential for organising even a small Ganpati celebration is constantly on the rise (this year around 10 per cent), we cannot restrict ourselves from it as it is a part of our culture, festival and opportunity to bond and celebrate with our society members,” said Bobby Kapoor, chairman of Swastik Palms society at Brahmand.
Some have even willing to spend more owing to their decision to adopt an environment-friendly celebration in the city.
This, mandals compensate by inviting volunteers from their political or societal groups, instead of hiring volunteers or by cutting down on decorations and keeping it simple.
“We decided to have an eco-friendly theme this year, which hiked the cost of our Ganpati idol. While we couldn’t curb expenses on security, snacks and other miscellaneous necessities, we decided to go with simple decorations which brought down the cost of our set up by close to Rs 50,000,” said Bala Gawan, member of the Snehankit Mitra Mandal at Vishnu Nagar.
“We have a number of young volunteers who will be helping with the security, maintenance and setting up of the Ganpati pandal. This has saved us the task of hiring volunteers for the same,” said Pushkaraj Vuchare, member of the Mandal at Shivai Nagar.
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