Kolkata pandal installs 50kg gold Durga idol; 250 workers took three months to make it, says puja committee member

Kolkata: Continuing their tradition of using precious metals and stones to adorn goddess Durga for the third consecutive year, a puja committee has installed her idol made of 50 kilograms 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. [caption id=“attachment_7444871” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Durga idol of 50 kg gold in Kolkata. ANI[/caption] 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 kilograms gold. Pandal’s interior is a replica of sheesh mahal where several tonnes of glass have 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.”