In the tune with the High Court order issued last year, Telangana government is thinking of curbing the competetion in installing the tallest Ganesh statues in Hyderabad. This was revealed by Municipal Administration minister KT Ramarao today while launching the desilting works in famous Hussain Sagar lake in Hyderabad. He said the government was contemplating to restrict the height of the statue during Ganesh festivals. This will come into force from this year itself.
Requesting the media to help government educate the public about the problems in the installation and immersion of tallest Vigrahas in Hussain Sagar, he said Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation would soon take a decision restricting the height of the statue to 20 feet.
Simalarly, only clay Ganeshas are allowed to be installed during festivals. ” From now onwards only clay Ganesha Statues are permitted in city,” KTR said. As for immersion, the GHMC was planning to decentralise the immersion to of statue which is now mostly concentrated at Hussain Sagar. These are the steps taken as part of the ambitious plan to transform the City’s landmark lake into fresh water lake. Today KTR launched the de-silting program at Hussain Sagar being taken up at a cost of Rs 354 crore.
Every year Hyderabad witnesses a fierce competition among the organizers of Ganesh Utsavas in installing tallest statues while city’s Khairatababad statue has the distinction being one of tallest statues installed during Ganesh utsavas in the country. Recently, the height of the statue, which crossed 60 feet, has been frozen at 56 feet. But, height of the statues began growing in other parts of the city like Balapore, New Nagole, Kavadiguda, Hussain Alum, Gowlipura etc and more than 30 feet is the norm.
However, last year, an advocate filed a petition in the High Court for a direction to the government to restrict the ever-growing height of Ganeshas. In November 2015, a Bench comprising of, the then acting chief justice Dilip B Bhosale and Justice S V Bhatt directed the state government and GHMC to restrict the size of Ganeshas. The bench observed upon bringing to its notice that many FOBs had been removed to facilitate the procession of the tallest statues, ” Even Lord Ganesha will not like to remain a stumbling block to the process of city’s development. The size of the God should be such that when you stand in front of Lord Ganesha, you should be able to see the face of the Lord.”
Stating that huge idols should not affect the construction of foot over bridges and flyovers, the Bench directed the authorities to constitute committee with utsav samitis and stakeholder to discuss the matter.