Upasanasthal in New Town sees idol immersions in huge numbers

Kolkata: As the ghats in Kolkata remained busy with immersions on Monday, New Town too saw a good number of immersions.

The New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) made elaborate arrangements for the immersion at Upasanasthal — the immersion ghat at New Town.

"We allowed no puja community members to go to the water to prevent untoward incidents. Three sets of labourers were deployed to offload idols from trucks, carry them to the ghat and immerse after observing rites like rotating," a senior official of NKDA said.

A country boat team was kept on water to pull away the floating idols to prevent congestion near the bank. A disaster management police speedboat was kept on standby to watch for any emergencies.

There were extensive arrangements of vats for flowers, puja materials, plastics etc and workers continuously empty these to make it effective for all puja immersions. "Cranes will lift the wooden frames from the water by Tuesday morning," the official said adding that sweeping teams kept the paved areas off the ghat clean every 15-20 minutes. An officer with a cordless mike walked around in the paved well-lit arena to remind people of the dos and don'ts in realtime (don't get into water, throw flowers in vats etc).

A place near the dais of Upasanasthal was earmarked for dhunuchi-cum-dhak competition and arati dance (five minutes for each Puja group). "We will award prizes to the best three dance performances in New Town Mela in December," the official said.

On Dashami, there were 161 immersions at Upasanasthal. Interestingly, 81 of the puja committees came from outside New Town while 80 were from New Town. A token amount of Rs 500 was charged from the puja committees who had come from outside. Not a single immersion took place on Sunday.