Lucknow’s Durga Puja pandals are scaling up and how!
In 1914, Lucknow hosted just one Durga Puja at the Bengali Club. By 2022, police records showed 121 registered pandals and 133 non-pandal celebrations across the city. Today, over 250 organised pujas transform neighbourhoods from Aliganj and Jankipuram to Gomti Nagar, Rabindra Palli, Model House, Badshahnagar and Sahara States into festive destinations. In 2022, Jankipuram’s Utsav Durga Puja committee unveiled a 139-feet-tall pandal, equivalent to a 14-storey building, spread across 10,500 square feet. It required 10,200 bamboo poles from Assam, 4,300 square metres of cloth from Surat, and five quintals of nails, and 52 artisans crafted it over a month. By 2023, the same committee had built a Vrindavan Prem Mandir-inspired structure using 12,000 bamboo poles and four truckloads of thermocol. In 2025, they went bigger still: a 108-feet-high, 2-lakh-square-feet pandal modelled on Dakshineshwar Kali Temple, constructed by 58 artisans over nearly two month. A 2022 Jankipuram pandal cost around `35 lakh. By 2025, budgets ranged from `11 lakh for Ansal’s ‘Golden Forest’ to `50 lakh for Jankipuram’s Thailand Pagoda and Swaminarayan Temple replicas. In 2025, a BrahMos missile installation, 105 feet tall and costing `40 lakh, aimed for Guinness World Records recognition. In an earlier story to us, Asim Matya, credited with introducing theme-based pujas to Lucknow in 2007, said, “In 2007 I was the first to come up with the idea of theme pandal in Lucknow.
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This year Asim is said to be making three big pandal, including the Ram Temple theme pandal in Sahara Estate, Vatican City pandal in Model House and Akshardham pandal at Ansals. Every day thousands visit, which makes them prime spaces for brand promotion,” said an organiser. “Companies see this as a cultural connection campaign rather than just advertising,” he adds. “Durga Puja is no longer just a festival, it’s a spectacle, a statement of scale and a testament to how a community celebration can become a city’s cultural centerpiece,” adds, – Media coordinator of a prominent Durga Puja pandal.
Lucknow’s Durga Puja has evolved from a modest Bengali community celebration into a citywide festival of epic proportions, with themed pandals, towering idols and months of preparation now drawing lakhs of visitors annually. The numbers tell the story of this dramatic scale-up. Lucknow’s Durga Puja pandals are scaling up and how! Inside the making of mega pujas The physical scale of pandals has grown exponentially. Investment has scaled accordingly. How themes, talent and titling are reshaping Lucknow’s pujas Themes have become increasingly ambitious. Past recreations include Vatican City, Rameshwaram Temple, Vidhan Bhawan, village landscapes and Chandrayaan missions. Model House’s Mitro Sangho has annually transported visitors globally from Vatican City to Akshardham Temple in Gujarat. Behind these towering structures are migrant artisans from West Bengal, who arrive weeks before Mahalaya to transform bamboo and cloth into spectacle. Subol Dollopotatti, from Medinepore district, who has been coming to Lucknow every Durga puja since decades explains the pull, “Here, in one season, we earn double income to keep our families going for months. Pandal organizers acknowledge that modern scale would be impossible without corporate backing. “Durga Puja pandals are high-footfall zones. Arun Banerjee, President, Bengali Club, shares, “We’re not in the race to be the tallest, highest or largest. Devotees often visit the grand pandals, but eventually come to the Bengali Club seeking peace. Download the TOI App.
