Municipal commissioner Chandramohan Kashyap has instructed civic body officials to place large containers in each of around 150 Durga Puja pandals spread over all five circles for collecting plastic waste material and ensuring their proper disposal after conclusion of the festival.

The move is part of the Swachhata hi Seva (cleanliness is service) programme of the Dhanbad Municipal Corporation (DMC) from September 11 to October 27 during which various activities including awareness campaigns against single-use plastic are being carried out.

“We have put our containers near some pandals while at other places the Puja committee members have themselves established containers as per our instruction for plastic waste collection,” said Bijay Kumar, city manager (sanitation) of Dhanbad Municipal Corporation. “We will ensure transport of plastic material collected from each Puja pandal to the DMC headquarters after conclusion of Puja from where it would be sent for proper disposal.

“We are taking all sorts of steps to minimise the use of plastic during Durga Puja celebrations,” he said. “We have also earmarked a ditch-like space in all the ponds by barricading the shallow corner of the pond to avoid immersion in the middle of ponds. We have deputed our staff at major ponds to instruct the puja committees to carry out immersion of idol in the designated place barricaded through bamboo and also put large bags so that the puja committees can put the plastic material and other non biodegradable material of the idol in the bag before carrying out immersion at the designated place of the pond.”

Organisers will also be felicitated for avoiding plastic during religious functions or events such as weddings.

Kanchan Dey, member of Bangali Kalyan Samiti which is organising Puja on the theme of nature at the Zilla Parishad Ground of Dhanbad, said: “We have ourselves put the container outside our pandal from October 4 when our Puja was inaugurated; our pandal is completely free of plastic materials.”