Hyderabad: Final adieu to Ganapati today

Hyderabad: After 10 days of continuous worship and prayers, all the Ganesh idols in the city are going to be immersed on the day of Ananth Chaturdashi, that is on September 23, Sunday. 

On this day all the major pandals would be immersing Bappa. 

The Ganesh idols of Khairatabad, Charminars and Balapurs would start in the wee hours on Sunday and take a determined path to Tank Bund for the immersion as a grand procession.

The 373-km path is arranged for the Ganesh procession by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC).

According to the schedule, the Old City Ganesh idols would be immersed first, followed by the rest of the city.

Bhagyanagar Utsav Committee has mentioned that they are planning to finish all the immersions on the day of Anant Chaturdashi itself and are not willing to extend it to Monday and they have coordinated with all the Ganesh pandals in the city and advised them to move out with their processions as early as possible. Also, the state government has promised to provide continuous water and power supply in order to finish the early pujas and start the procession.

GHMC Commissioner, Mr Dana Kishore visited the Tank Bund on Saturday evening and checked the arrangements and said 12,540 idols were immersed in Tank Bund and 42,000 idols in the entire city.

As a part of immersion arrangements, roads have been re-carpeted and potholes were filled on the procession route by spending 10.52 cr. Also fresh water has been filled in the twenty artificial tanks that were arranged by the GHMC for immersions.

Balapur Laddu
Another interesting element in the Ganesh Utsav, which catches many eyeballs is the auction of Ganesh laddus, of which the Balapur Ganesh temple laddu is the most special one. Adding to its speciality, this time, the auction process is going to enter into its silver jubilee year. 

The auction started way back in 1994 and the first laddu was sold for Rs 450 25 years ago.

This time there were around 24 nominations for the Laddu auction, of which eighteen are from the Balapur village and six from outside the village. Last year, the laddu was auctioned for 15,60,000 and the bid was won by Mr Nagam Tirupati Reddy from Jubilee hills Ayyappa society. The outsiders who are bidding for the auction have to pay the last year’s auction amount as refundable deposit before participating; the rest of the village can participate with an amount of one thousand. The basic auction price would be Rs 1,116.