Troubled waters at Banganga

Activist Sanjay Shirke (r) and local Niranjan More point to the barricade and caution sign at Banganga tank. Pic/Shadab Khan

This January, the sacred Banganga tank in Walkeshwar looked all set to get a new lease of life, with the restoration of its stairs that surround the rectangular sacred tank on all four sides. Today, nearly 10 months after the work began, the steps are only partially made.

The stone from the old steps was discarded in the tank water. This portion was cordoned off by locals, who were alarmed at the prospect of a person diving into the tank and suffering grievous injuries.

Precautionary measure
"We saw a part of the tank water being made off limits with sticks and cloth tied to form a barricade. A contractor was fixing a ‘caution' sign on a part of this," said activist Sanjay Shirke.

"There are so many children and adults too who jump into the water here. Somebody can easily hit their head on the stone or get injured. Hence, I decided to restrict access at least to that part."

A local, Niranjan More, said the site is in a state of crisis and urgent measures need to be taken to clean and maintain it.

Director of Archeology, Maharashtra, Sushil Garje, under whose auspices the project is being done, said, "I will speak to the contractor soon. Since the work is on, people can expect some inconvenience. There is also no place to keep the old stones though."

Garje added that the work was delayed because of the monsoon. "Work got interrupted then. After that, there was Pitra Paksh, so we could not do it. In this way, there have been several breaks. But we will re-start soon and finish it," he said.

Holy crap!
Praveen Kanvinde of the Gaud Saraswat Trust, which looks after the tank's upkeep, said, "When we visited the site, the steps had water all over, banana peels left over after pujas... One can slip and fall into the water or break a leg anytime. Also, on one side of the tank, trees seemed to have breached a part of a wall. Yet, people were seen taking holy dips."

"Both the water and the surroundings of the Banganga are dirty because of the thousands that arrived for the last day of Pitra Paksh. We will begin cleaning in a few days; that will go on for a week," he added.

When it was pointed out that this is not a one-off but a perennial problem dogging the heritage site, Kanvinde said their plans have been held up because of the ongoing restoration work.

"Once that is over, we plan to erect a fence around the tank; we will also have security personnel manning the site."

Delay dilemma
It is evident that there is a lot of passing the buck when it comes to Banganga. While the archeology department has blamed the monsoon for delay in resuming the work, the Trust overseeing the tank is waiting for the completion of the work to implement its measures, but neither is committing to a time frame for anything.

When mid-day had visited the site this February, work was on in full swing and a conservation assistant with the Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, Maharashtra, had said that they hoped that the steps would "last another 200 years". Today, with a number of obstacles, one can only hope that the steps and the beautification doesn't take 200 years.