Idol immersion goes green

Police and local bodies will now have to ask devotees to remove clothes and ornaments from idols before immersing them into water bodies.

Updated on: Jun 24, 2010, 02:12:37 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Police and local bodies will now have to ask devotees to remove clothes and ornaments from idols before immersing them into water bodies. The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) on Wednesday issued guidelines based on directions of Mumbai High Court on idol immersion in an environment-friendly manner.

The guidelines prohibit painting of idols with toxic and non-bio-degradable dyes. “Materials such as flowers, vastras (clothes), decorating materials (made of paper and plastic) should be removed before immersion of idols,” the CPCB said.

Approximately, close to 10 lakh idols are immersed each year in India’s water bodies. “Every year, after Durga puja the biological oxygen demand (BOD) levels in rivers in West Bengal fall dramatically...” said a CPCB official. Very low BOD levels can lead to death of marine life.

The guidelines direct local bodies to have dedicated immersion points with synthetic liners at the bottom of the water body. Idols can be immersed under supervision of the state pollution control board. “All idols have to be removed from water bodies within 48 hours under supervision of state pollution control board officials,” a CPCB official said.

Idol immersion being a big religious ritual for Hindus, the CPCB admits implementation of guidelines could be tough. So, it has recalled a message in Sanskrit from the Bhagavad Gita to convince people.

“Traditionally, we have been using environment-friendly products to make idols. We can do it now too as they are easily available in the market,” said CPCB chairman S.P. Gautam.

“West Bengal is already popularising environment friendly idols made of clay and having non-toxic natural colours.”

The state governments have been asked to set up coordination committees comprising representatives of pooja committees, police, local NGOs and leaders to guide the public.

They have also been asked to carry out awareness campaign on ill effect of toxic products.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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