With one day to go for Ganesh festival, 150 of Mumbai’s 2,925 mandals yet to receive BMC approval

The Ganesh festival will be celebrated from August 31 to September 9.

As restrictions on community celebration of the Ganesh festival, imposed in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, have been lifted this year, celebrations are planned at a larger scale, the BMC data has revealed. The BMC in 2022 received 17 per cent more applications from Ganesh mandals in comparison to 2021 when it received 2,507 applications, and 26 per cent more applications in comparison to the first pandemic year of 2020, when it received 2,048 applications. There has been a 4.5 per cent reduction in the number of applications in 2022 in comparison to the pre-pandemic year of 2019 when the BMC had received 3,064 applications, out of which 2,615 obtained permission

The shortage of funds and donations during the two years of the pandemic hit several small Ganesh mandals which have chosen to scale down their celebrations this year and decided not to erect pandals and celebrate the festival within compounds of housing societies.

A senior civic official said on Tuesday morning: “The BMC is continuing with its scrutiny of applications, and the cases will be closed within today or tomorrow.”

Naresh Dahibawkar, president of the Brihanmumbai Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav Samanvay Samiti (BSGSS), said: “The Ganesh festival will be celebrated on a larger scale this year, as it is the first after the pandemic years. In 2020 and 2021, there were a lot of restrictions from the Maharashtra government for celebrations in public mandating social distancing which are not there this year.”

“The two years were financially difficult for many families. And small mandals have seen contributions from local community members dwindle. So they reduced the celebrations from a full 10 days to 1.5 days. In such cases, they choose to not erect pandals for 1.5 days, but celebrate it locally within housing society compounds,” he added.