Work for famous Khairatabad Ganesh Idol 2020 started on Wednesday. This year Lord Khairatabad Ganesh will be giving darshan to the devotees in the form of ‘Dhanwantri Narayana Maha Ganapati’. The committee selected Dhanwantari meaning doctor to the gods with Lakshmi Devi on one side and Sarasvati Devi on the other side. The Khairatabad Ganesh Festival Committee released a model for making up the 9-feet tall Khairatabad Ganesh Idol 2020 in Hyderabad for Ganesh Chaturthi this year. The Ganesh Chaturthi festival will start on August 22 this year.
Ganesh Utsav Samithi has decided to celebrate the festival low-key this year in the wake of the coronavirus. Speaking on the occasion, committee chairman Singari Sudarshan said that the Khairatabad Ganesh statue would be erected at a lower height this year in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. He said that the Khairatabad Ganesh Idol 2020Â will be made in “Sri Dhanvantari Narayana” avatar this year. Sudarshan said the statue will be made of clay at the height of 9-feet.
He added that the statue was specially made by bringing clay from river Ganga in West Bengal and artists from Kolkata will make this statue which will be completed in three weeks. “We are setting up a nine-foot statue with six arms, along with Lakshmi and Saraswati on sideways,” he said. There will be ayurvedic scripture in the right hand, conch and ayurvedic herbs will be present on the left hand, along with that amritabhandam, laddu and kalasham will be present on the trunk.
Devotees from several parts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana visit Khairatabad’s Ganesh every year. But due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the committee has requested devotees not to visit the mandaps. Every year, the organizers of the Ganesh mandapam erect a huge Ganesha idol, but this year they have confined to only a 9-feet statue according to the government’s guidelines. Last year, a 61-feet Khairatabad Ganesh statue was made for the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations.