MC ‘Visar Vahan’ to collect abandoned religious items

Chandigarh, November 10

The city Municipal Corporation today launched ‘Visar Vahan’, a unique initiative of collecting religious offerings left near trees and in open areas.

The specially fabricated vehicle would collect offerings, including idols of deities, pictures of gods and goddesses and ‘chunnis’, left by devotees.

These items will be taken to the RRR centre. The idols will be immersed (‘visarjan’) in a dedicated water tank. The ‘chunnis’ will be collected by women help groups and sewn into clothes for deities while pictures will be recycled to make trays and puja ‘samagri’ using papier-mâché technique.

Mayor Anup Gupta and MC Commissioner Anindita Mitra flagged off the ‘visar vahan’ from Kali Mata Mandir in Sector 19 here. The vehicle has three cabins, one each for idols, photo frames and ‘chunnis’.

The Mayor said the project aimed at collecting offerings left near 165 identified locations, especially under peepal and banyan trees, and transform them into sacred art.

Mitra said, “The initiative will have a two-fold impact. Firstly, it shall ensure that the space beneath trees is clean and secondly, long-discarded worship material will be properly managed while respecting religious sentiments.”

She said the MC’s self-help groups, which comprise women, shall make paper-made products for worship from discarded religious manuscripts and pictures found under the trees. Decorative items such as puja thalis, religious symbols, photo frames, trays, candle stands and dhoop batti stands would be made from these materials. Additionally, other reusable products would be created from ‘chunni’, she added.