‘Duration of immersion would be longer this year’

The 10-day festival of Ganesh Chaturthi comes to an end today and it’s time for Lord Ganesha to come out on the Mumbai roads again on his way back to his heavenly abode. Lakhs of people will gather on the roads of Mumbai for immersion to bid farewell to the city’s favourite deity. But looking at the conditions of the roads, it’s sure that Ganesha too wouldn’t be spared of the bumpy rides which Mumbaikars are used to by now.

The Ganeshotsav Samanvay Samiti had also submitted a list of 5,425 roads to the BMC, which the civic body said would be repaired before the immersions. Apart from the heavy rainfall this year, the construction work happening across the city for either the metro or mono rail have affected a number of roads. “The whole process of immersion of Andhericha Raja generally takes 21 hours. As the roads have a number of potholes and are in a bad condition, the duration of the procession will go up. There are a number of potholes on the immersion of Andhericha Raja idol and there is MMRDA construction work going on for Metro project,” says Uday Salian, spokesperson, Andhericha Raja Seva Samitee.

The immersion process usually takes 12 to 24 hours for a big Ganpati idol. However, due to potholes and huge traffic, mandals are estimating that this year immersion of Ganesha will take more time.

Nandkishor Phalke, president, Chichpokli South Divya Ganesh Mandal expresses his concern, “We have tried our best to give a comfortable ride to  Ganesha but looking at the roads from Chinchpokli to Girgaon chowpatty there is no hope for smooth ride.

The BMC said they would repair the roads before immersion day but almost 70% potholes are quite visible on the roads. Every year our immersion process takes 12 hours but this year there is higher possibility of taking for the immersion of idol.

In the city MMRDA has also running many projects like metro, Mono rail or sky walk. Many mandals had already been informed by the authorities about the condition of the roads. “We had voiced our concerns to the MMRDA and the BMC but there is no satisfactory result seen on the roads. As always, they are just playing the blame game with no one taking responsibility. The MMRDA commissioner has assured us that all the roads will be repaired on the final day of the immersion,” said Uday Salian.

Despite so many potholes on the roads some of the mandals are unperturbed. They believe that the authorities must do their work and there wont be any tremendous impact. This is because they believe that the condition of roads has improved in many areas.