As Durga Puja and Dussehra festivities concluded the closing weekend, rivers and lakes over again have become extra polluted following the immersion of idols worshipped in puja pandals throughout cities.

The suggestions formulated with the aid of using the Central and nation pollutants manipulation boards (CPCB and SPCBs) went in large part unheeded notwithstanding a few efforts with the aid of using municipal our bodies and police to curtail the practice.

Environmentalists and river specialists had been campaigning in opposition to those idol immersions for over a decade now. Judicial interventions withinside the past, however, have now no longer yielded the favored result. Every year, after Ganesh Chaturthi, Durga Puja, and Kali Puja, the organic oxygen demand (BOD) stages in rivers grow dramatically.

Traditionally, the idols have been products of dust and painted with herbal colors. But now many are made the usage of plaster of Paris (PoP) and lined with dangerous paints containing heavy metals, all of which emerge as withinside the rivers on Dussehra day. 

According to non-income Toxics Link, about 100,000 idols are immersed in India's water bodies every year. With the upward thrust in pollutants stages withinside the rivers, some states at the moment are evolving approaches to save you or minimize idol immersion.

A 1993-95, a look at through the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB)—Impacts of Dussehra Festival at the River Hooghly: A case look at—confirmed that each yr at least 15,000 idols of Goddess Durga are immersed withinside the Hooghly river alone. The look states that this releases 16. eight tonnes of varnish and garjan oil and 32 tonnes of colors withinside the water. These colorings incorporate an excellent dose of heavy metals like manganese, lead, mercury, and chromium. The look additionally located that in Dusshera, oil and grease withinside the river expanded through 0. ninety-nine milligrams in step with a liter (mg/l), and the attention of heavy metals expanded through 0.104 mg/l. 

Just beforehand for the festive season this yr, the Allahabad High Court had banned the immersion of idols withinside the Ganga and Yamuna rivers in Uttar Pradesh. The excessive courtroom docket bench of Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice Arun Tandon ordered a blanket ban on the immersion of idols withinside the rivers. It additionally brushed off the plea of the national authorities that the idols might be immersed after which taken out immediately. The order became reported through listening to a petition of an environmental activist, Sudhanshu Srivastava, to test the growing pollutants ranges withinside the Ganga.

Though the national management officers pleaded for a yr's time, the bench declined their plea and ordered the national authorities to make sure that within a yr there ought to be “0 immersion” withinside the rivers of Uttar Pradesh. The courtroom docket had in advance requested the Uttar Pradesh SPCB to screen the water best earlier than and after the immersion of idols. The document submitted earlier than the courtroom docket discovered that the water best deteriorated substantially after immersion of idols.

According to the current reviews of the SPCB, behind scheduled monsoon had expanded the pollutants in Ganga and the scenario might be worse in winter. Water at Bithoor, the factor in which the Ganga enters Kanpur town, is pretty clean however the river receives pollution similarly down. At Jajmau, the stretch of the Ganga withinside the town is the maximum polluted. The dissolved oxygen (DO) degree at Bithoor is 7.6 mg in step with a liter which decreases to 6. three mg in step with a liter at Jajmau. The suitable degree of DO for a consuming water reservoir is four mg in step per liter, the document stated. The document additionally indicated that immersion of a massive quantity of idols all through Ganesh Chaturthi had already affected the water best.

The petitioner, Sudhanshu Srivastava, pleaded withinside the courtroom docket that the district administration, in spite of numerous reminders, had didn't make good enough opportunity preparations for the immersion of idols withinside the Ganga. 

The order became welcomed by numerous environmental activists withinside the country who've been preventing lower river pollutants. Several non-earnings businesses have additionally commenced campaigning for greener alternatives. 

In 2009, the Bombay High Court directed CPCB to border hints to lower water pollutants and Maharashtra SPCB and Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation had been directed to put in force. 

The CPCB hints to direct the neighborhood of our bodies to offer devoted immersion factors with artificial liners at the lowest of the synthetic water body. Idols may be immersed beneath neath supervision of SPCB. All idols then want to be eliminated from water our bodies within forty-eight hours. The country governments had been requested to install coordination committees comprising representatives of pooja committees, police, neighborhood NGOs, and leaders to manual the public. 

It recommends that tracking of the water pleasant have to be executed in 3 stages—pre-puja, at some point during the pujas, and after the immersions. While maximum of the SPCBs does now no longer have records on how a great deal the pleasant of water in rivers and lakes of their jurisdiction is stricken by idol immersion, a few states like Gujarat and Karnataka have taken affirmative action.