HYDERABAD: Devotees in the city will have to spend extra money on Ganesha idols this Ganesha Chaturthi compared to the previous year. Prices of idols have significantly increased as a result of the growing cost for raw materials like clay, plaster of Paris (POP), and paint.
In popular idol markets like Dhoolpet, Chandanagar, Choutuppal, Nagole and Yemjal, prices have skyrocketed for idols ranging in size from 5 inches to 50 feet tall. Apart from raw material costs, idol-makers also attributed the rise in prices to the confusion over immersion of PoP idols in the city’s lakes.
"Ten-feet idols used to be about `12,000 to `15,000, this year the same is being sold between `25,000 and `30,000," said Nitin Singh, a Ganesha idol vendor. There aren't many idols available because of the confusion brought on by the initial ban on PoP idols and the subsequent stay.
Due to the uncertainty, artists took their time manufacturing idols which resulted in the shortage.
“Around 20 of our families depend on making Ganesha idols, and there are about 20 individuals working at the workshop. We don't want any support from the government, but our only hope is that the government stops confusing the artisans over PoP idols,” said Mahesh Singh Kalakar, a Ganesha idol maker in Dhoolpet.
He claimed that they can make Ganesh idols that are 10 to 20 feet tall. They were unable to match the demand and could only make around half as many idols as they typically would have due to a paucity of time.
“The majority of the smaller idols, which range in size from 5 inches to 3 feet, are being imported from Nagpur, Sholapur, and Pune as demand has increased. Since thousands of local artists depend on this category of idols, and the import is a huge loss for them. The cost of the raw materials has increased, and the labourers, whose daily wage was `400, now demand `800 apart from their food costs,” he said.
According to Ganji Kiran Kumar, Global Color, the price of paint has increased by 35 per cent and that of PoP by 20 per cent. “At the moment, there are many eco-friendly paints available on the market, and there are paints that won't affect water bodies. I proposed that, despite the government's effort to ban certain materials used in idol making, they could inform the artisans about the environmentally friendly products that are already on the market.”
