PUNE: With the Ganesh festival inching closer, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has ordered 200 metric tonne of ammonium bicarbonate from National Chemicals and Fertilisers to keep up the environmentally-friendly practice of immersing Ganesh idols in water mixed with the chemical.
The standing committee of the PMC has given its nod to the administration to procure ₹50 lakh worth of ammonium bicarbonate from the government-owned National Chemicals and Fertilisers. The PMC usually distributes the chemical free-of-cost to citizens to carry out immersion of Ganesh idols within their homes. The Ganesh idols are immersed in water mixed with the chemical which helps dissolve the Plaster of Paris (PoP) idols without causing any water- or environmental pollution.
Earlier, municipal corporations would face pollution of rivers and other water bodies as thousands of Ganesh idols made of PoP were immersed on different days of the festival. Faced with similar problems, the PMC, with the help of the National Chemical Laboratory (NCL), found that if the idols were immersed in water mixed with Ammonium Bicarbonate, they dissolved and the resultant solution could be used to plant trees. Ever since, the PMC has been ordering the chemical ahead of the Ganesh festival and is getting good support from citizens with demand for it increasing year-on-year.