WB: Durga idol made of 50kg gold installed at pandal in Kolkata

Continuing their tradition of using precious metals and stones to adorn goddess Durga for the third consecutive year, a puja committee here has installed her idol made of 50 kg gold at the pandal.

In the year 2017, the organisers of the puja had draped Maa Durga in a gold saree and in 2018 she was astride a silver chariot.

According to Sajal Ghosh, committee's General Secretary, it took three months for 250 workers to install the goddess and two and a half months to complete the pandal.

"Only the arms of Maa Durga are made of silver but the whole idol from top to bottom has been made of 50 kg gold. Pandal's interior is a replica of sheesh mahal where several tonnes of glass has been used and the exterior is a replica of Mayapur's ISKCON temple," Ghosh said.

He further stated that since a lot of "MNCs have come up with machines to make jewellery because of which the business of Bengal gold-makers have gone down, they wanted to show the country that only 'Vishwakarmas' (gold-artists) can make goddess and saree of gold or chariot of silver and not any machine.