Jamshedpur: With the festival season around the corner, Durga Puja organisers in the city are going all out to support the Prime Minister’s call to phase out single-use plastic and avoid plastic items in pandals, the organisers will be doing their bit to adhere to a plastic-free puja.
The decision was taken at the Durga Puja Central Committee’s annual general meeting at Utkal Association Sakchi held after two years. Representatives of 150 Durga Puja committees took part in the meeting out of a total of 290 Durga Puja committees. Chandranath Banerjee presided over the meeting.
In this meeting, first of all, the Central Committee expressed its gratitude to all its 290 Durga Puja committees, who performed rituals of Maa Durga even in such a difficult situation in the past years and discharged their social responsibility in the Corona epidemic.
The accounts of two years were presented in this meeting. Also, the report of the meeting held in two years was presented by the treasurer of the committee, Surjit Chaudhary and general secretary Rambabu Singh. Shambhu Mukhi narrated the annual report for the year 2020-21. It was passed by the members of the committee.
The working president of the committee, Ashutosh Singh, placed the guidelines of the central committee among the members of the worship committee during the worship. This mainly included keeping the camp office near the puja pandal by the committee, keeping everyone aware of the environment, making the idol with eco-friendly products and completely banning the use of plastic in any form. Along with this, the arrangement of adequate water around the pandal, arrangement of fire extinguishers and installation of CCTV cameras in the pandal were also directed. A copy of the guideline was also distributed among all the members.
This year the worship of Maa Durga should be completed, mutual cooperation and brotherhood should be established in the society, with all these resolutions the proceedings of the general assembly ended. The meeting was conducted by Arun Singh and vote of thanks was proposed by Bande Shankar.
An official said that apart from persuading all puja committees to avoid use of plastic not only in puja pandals but also ensure that vendors do not use it. With the directive and threat of surprise inspection by the local civic bodies this year all the puja samitis will have to ensure that plastic use is prohibited in the pandal area.
According to information, puja committees have been asked to make elaborate arrangements to ensure security and cleanliness and hygiene at their respective campuses. The quality of food and other eateries served near the campuses of puja pandals should be proper. The samiti threatened to take strict action against those who violate pandal safety norms and other guidelines.
