Two months before the 125th Sarvajanik Ganesh Utsav comes to the city, the five Manache Ganpati Mandals in Pune, along with the prominent Dagadusheth Ganpati and Mandai Ganpati mandals , have received notices from the Pune police department for causing noise pollution during last year immersion procession. The mandals have banded together against these notices and met Pune mayor Mukta Tilak , demanding her intervention. The mandals are uncertain over what action the police might take and confused over whether or not to proceed with the traditional processions this year."The Ganpati festival is celebrated with enthusiasm all over Maharashtra, and Pune and Mumbai are the centre of attraction for tourists from all over the world. This year is special, as the festival is completing its 125th year of celebrations. All of a sudden, in the middle of our preparations, we get notices for noise pollution during last year's immersion procession. Till now, mandal volunteers and officials have followed every rule imposed on us by the state and Central governments. Despite this, we received sound pollution notices, even though we had only dhol tasha pathaks and traditional music bands in our procession. If such action continues, we need to think about whether to go ahead with our procession in the traditional way or not from this year," said Mahesh Suryvanshi, treasurer of Dagdusheth Ganpati Mandal and coordinator of the Jai Ganesh Forum."This action has been taken by the Pune police almost 10 months after last year's Ganpati festival and has dampened the atmosphere amongst mandals. Our demand is simple — rules and regulations for the festival should be declared by the state government and honoured for a few years. Instead, we have new rules coming up every year, making it hard to keep track. A committee should be formed in which representatives of Ganpati mandals, the state government, police and political leaders should participate with a model code of conduct created. After the notices were sent to us last week, we met mayor Tilak and asked her to intervene," added Suryvanshi.A total of 25 Ganpati mandals have got notices from the Pune police for noise pollution, out of which 12 had dhol tasha pathaks playing in mandal and not on loudspeakers. Shrikant Shete, president of Kasba Ganpati Mandal, the first Manache Ganpati of Pune, echoed, "There is no proper method or procedure to calculate the decibel of noise during the immersion processions. First they told us not to have huge walls of loudspeakers, then there was restriction on the number of dhols and tashas to be played and now, after following all the rules, we still get police notices. We have written to Pune guardian minister Girish Bapat about this. If the cops continue with this sort of action, we will have to rethink our traditional processions on the last day."Mayor Tilak said, "I have met with the mandal officials and will be meeting Pune police commissioner Rashmi Shukla, too. We will certainly try to resolve this issue."Ravindra Kadam, joint commissioner of the Pune police, only said, "The notices have been sent to the Ganpati mandals for sound pollution during last year's procession, as calculated by the police and the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB). We have given them a certain time period to respond, after which appropriate action will be taken."

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