Deb plea to follow green order on puja

Deb visits the bank of the Mahananda river at Santoshinagar in Siliguri on Tuesday. Picture by Passang Yolmo

TT, 24 October 2017, Siliguri: Tourism minister Gautam Deb has been visiting the ghats located on either bank of the Mahananda river ahead of the Chhat Puja for past two days, courtesy a directive issued by the Darjeeling district administration that imposed certain restrictions on the use of Mahananda river during the celebrations.

Deb asked the people to follow the order issued by the National Green Tribunal

The eastern zonal bench of green tribunal had acted on a petition filed by Calcutta-based environmentalist Subhas Datta, who had mentioned that the river that flows through Siliguri gets polluted and its free flow is obstructed during Chhat Puja.

The tribunal heard the case and summoned all parties concerned, including the district magistrate of Darjeeling, the Siliguri Jalpaiguri Development Authority and Siliguri Municipal Corporation.

It finally passed an order that no temporary structure could be built on the riverbed during the celebrations and devotees could use the river up to 3ft from the banks for rituals.

Till last year, sandbags were used to build raised platforms on the Mahananda river bed. These platforms were also decorated and hundreds of devotees used to perform Puja standing there.

This made the district magistrate hold a meeting with different committees which organise the Chhat Puja and decorate the ghats. The DM then also passed a directive, based on the order.

"A section of people initially felt that it is an order of the administration and thus, expressed dissent. Also, murmurs started in political circles," said a representative of one of the committees that organises the Puja.

Such dissents prompted minister Deb and the administrative officials to jump into action. They started visiting the ghats and speaking to people to apprise them that the administration was only implementing the tribunal's directive.

Even on Tuesday, Deb went to the Santoshi Ma Chhat Ghat near Shaktigarh and inspected the preparations. He appealed to the residents to follow the order of tribunal during the Puja.

"I have visited the chhat ghats here in the past two days and my appeal to all the devotees is that they should carry out the rituals as per the guidelines of NGT. We will extend all necessary cooperation so that they can perform the puja conveniently. The only thing is that nobody will be allowed to construct any temporary structure in the river," said Deb.

The minister and administration made such prompt moves also to prevent any other political party from reaping dividend out of the issue, observers said.

"Over one lakh people participate in Chhat Puja in and around Siliguri. Earlier, we have seen some political parties becoming vocal against some decisions made by the state with regard to immersion of Durga Puja. Here also, there was a buzz in some circles and in fact a few political persons had even made some posts in social media against the restriction. This is another reason that the minister and officials articulated clarification," said an observer.