A 71-year-old Jagaddhatri Puja committee in Hooghly’s Chandernagore is worshipping a printed image of the idol this year to make it lightweight and ensure fewer people are involved in its immersion amid the pandemic.

The 20-foot-tall vinyl-printed image has been fixed on plywood to give a 3D (three dimensional) look and a feel of clay idol.

Chandernagore’s Jagaddhatri Puja is popular for huge idols, 3D illuminations and enormous immersion processions. In view of government regulations because of the pandemic, several Puja committees have downsized the celebrations to avoid huge crowds.

A member of the Bagbazar Chowmatha Jagadhatri Puja Committee said the idea to use vinyl printing the idol occurred to them as vinyl prints were offered as high-quality 3D solutions for decorating cars, buildings and windows.

A member of the seven-decade-old Puja committee said that after several rounds of discussions they opted for the printed version of the goddess to make the idol lighter and easier to carry for immersion.

After talks, local printing press was contacted to find out whether it would be able to print the picture of last year’s clay idol on a 20-foot-long flex (which would be affixed to a piece of ply) to give a 3D effect, said a committee member. The printers said they could do the job.

As budget was also a major consideration for the organisers this year, vinyl printing helped slash the cost spent on the idol in normal years.

Till last year, the committee had spent Rs 35,000 on the idol and this year it has been significantly less.

“The vinyl print cost us around Rs 22,000,” said Somnath Niyogi, treasurer of the Puja committee.

However, the factor that weighed most on the minds of the organisers was not cost but weight. With vinyl print that target was achieved.

“The technology is called 3D vinyl printing. We have placed it on a plywood and the weight has become much lighter than that of a clay idol. While the clay idol weighs around 8-10 quintals, this weighs less than 100kg,” said Bhaskar De Sarkar, one of the organisers. He added that a lightweight idol meant less people during immersion.

Biswanath Niyogi, the president of the Puja committee, said this year only 15-20 persons would be allowed in the immersion process. “Carrying a clay idol would have required many people which is not possible amid a pandemic. As most of our committee members are elderly and some of them are even Covid survivors, we decided to keep them away from the process.” He added that the idol would be immersed on Tuesday, when the four-day-long Jagaddhatri Puja celebrations come to an end.