The celebrations for Ganeshotsav were a little subdued in Mumbai due to the coronavirus outbreak. Several mandals across Mumbai have been celebrating Ganeshotsav in a simple manner. This was decided after Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray asked the associations to either cancel the celebrations or keep it low-key, so as to maintain social distancing and guidelines issued during the pandemic.
There are several dos and dont's that have been floatedto avoid overcrowding and help in celebrating Ganeshotsav in a hassle free manner. Devotees have been advised to carry out idol immersion of the Ganesh idols at their homes in a bucket or a drum as their first preference.
There are 70 natural immersion spots for Ganesh idols within MCGM jurisdiction and they are made available this year as well. However, only those citizens / devotees residing within 2 km radius of these spots are allowed to immerse their idols at there by handing over the idols to MCGM teams made available at these spots. The citizens / devotees shall not be allowed to enter the seawater or water of natural spots to immerse the idols themselves under any circumstances.
Additionally, in order to reduce overcrowding at natural immersion spots, M.C.G.M. has created about 170 artificial ponds across various Wards. Devotees residing nearby the artificial ponds are mandatorily required to carry out immersion of their Ganesh idols in the nearest artificial ponds only. Adequate arrangements to collect the idols at the Artificial Ponds has also been made by MCGM.
• In every M.C.G.M. Ward office jurisdiction 7 to 8 Ganesh idol Collection Centres are created and information of artificial ponds with their addresses and google locations is available on https://portal.mcgm.gov.in website of M.C.G.M. in "What's New" section.
The first immersion of Ganesh Festival 2020 was held on Sunday. All the idols that were brought for immersion were less than 4ft in height, as was directed by the civic authorities. Also they were made mostly of water soluble clay. Moreover, the immersion were to be carried out in only artificial ponds rather than the Arabian Sea or any other natural water body such Juhu beach, Girgaon Chowpatty, Dadar, Khar, Bandra etc.
On Sunday, (which marked one and half day visarjan) witnessed 40,823 idol immersions. Out of these 39,845 were that of households and 978 Sarvajanik (public). Furthermore, 22,859 idols were immersed across artificial immersion sites (22,149 households and 710 Sarvajanik).
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