The Gangasagar Mela in West Bengal will be plastic-free this winter. The fair – scheduled from January 13-15, will see a plastic recycling unit set up in the area. The move has been planned by the state government’s Public Health Engineering department.
Sagar Island lies in the Ganges delta, about 100 km south of Kolkata. It is under the South 24 Parganas district and part of the Sunderbans (though there are no tiger habitation or mangrove forests here). It is also known as Gangasagar or Sagardwip, a place of Hindu pilgrimage where, on Makar Sankranti – January 14 – thousands of people take a holy dip at the confluence of River Ganges and the Bay of Bengal. They also offer puja at the Kapil Muni temple. According to some estimates, in 2018, nearly 20 lakh people visited Gangasagar Mela.
The state’s PHE minister Soumen Mahapatra said that the chief minister has instructed the department to ensure that the fair remains pollution-free.
Every year a large number of visitors gather at the fair generating a huge amount of plastic waste that litters the coastline of Sagar Island, where the fair takes place. PHE will thus distribute paper cups and plates to all owners of shops and eateries in the area to discourage use of plastic.
Around 5,000 volunteers will be deployed to keep an eye on any unlawful plastic use in the area. Water will be served to the pilgrims in plastic pouches which will be disposed off in the plastic recycling unit after use.
The temple committee of Kapil Muni Ashram has been asked to use paper bags while distributing puja offerings to pilgrims. The funds for the paper bags will come from the PHE department.
Also, this time there will be two power supply lines for uninterrupted power at the fair. A third power line is also being planned, state power minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay said. The district magistrate has requested the power department to arrange for LED lights at some crucial points in the river channel to facilitate better navigation.
