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Journalism of Courage
From segregation of nirmalya to sweeping on the morning after, thousands of civic staff will be helped by volunteers
With the Ganesh Chaturthi, arguably Mumbai8217;s most popular festival, coming to an end, several groups of concerned citizens are preparing to tackle the after-effects of the festivities 8212; flowers and coconuts strewn on the beach along with garbage, litter left behind by the revellers and rotting food leftovers.
8220;Nirmalya consists of flowers, garlands, coconuts, accessories to decorate the deity and other miscellaneous things that are offered during worship. For the past few years, Mumbai8217;s Ganpati festival revellers and the BMC staff have initiated the separation of festival flowers that are put into the 8216;Nirmalya Kalash8217; instead of disposing the flowers directly in the sea,8221; said Kunti Oza from the Clean Mumbai Foundation. 8220;Our scheme involves the various Ganesh mandals, to separate the Nirmalya in three different bags when they are close to the immersion site. They will be responsible for handing over these Nirmalya bags to the nearby BMC staff who in turn will deposit the Nirmalya collected into trucks categorized for flowers, plastics and miscellaneous. In this way we shall strive to prevent all the Nirmalya going into the sea and also save the big efforts of the BMC staff from doing it manually, as is the case currently,8221; Oza added.
8220;I live on Juhu Beach. Every day, for the last twenty years, I go for a walk on the beach in the evening. Normally this is a beautiful experience for me. However, for the last seven or eight years there are two times in the year when this experience is anything but beautiful. One is at the onset of the monsoon and the other is at the Ganesh Utsav festival. For days, we have remnants of pujas strewn all along the beach,8221; said actor Soni Razdan.
While this one initiative received immense support from corporate groups and prominent citizens of Mumbai including various mandals, another simultaneous initiative was by students of various colleges who signed up as volunteers to help BMC staff with the entire process.
The Rotaract Club of Narsee Monjee College RCNM, functioning under the parent body of Rotary Club of Bombay West has been involved in the process since 2004.
This Monday will see the team of 50 to 60 volunteers gathering at 7.30 am at Juhu beach Beach, spending the next three hours collecting waste from the immersion process.
While the remains of idols will be immersed in the sea once again, all the other waste will be gathered and given to the BMC for recycling.
The team had handed over almost 156 kg of waste to the BMC last year.
8220;We believe that keeping all the good things that nature has endowed us with as pristine as they were meant to be is a responsibility that all of us must share. Last year, we were dirty, tired and perspiring after the drive but the amazing feeling that overcame us looking at the beach which had debris strewn around just a few hours back, all clean with sparkling yellow sand made all the efforts totally worth it,8221; said Naushita Jaising, a member of RCNM.
Also cleaning up Juhu beach will be volunteers of Indian Development Foundation in collaboration with Podar International School, Santacruz W. NSS Volunteers from Vivek College of Commerce will also be joining the team.
