Special attention was traditionally given to music arrangements during the opening day celebrations and the grand immersion processions, when roads across the city echoed with thundering beats
Ashok Shinde, a mandal office bearer, said the sound setup alone would cost nearly Rs 2 lakh for the immersion procession. “Of our overall decoration budget of around Rs 4 lakh, nearly 50% is usually earmarked for the sound system. With more than 3,500 mandals celebrating Ganeshotsav across Pune annually, spending patterns have often revolved around a simple choice — bigger decorations or bigger sound systems. Sandip Kale, associated with multiple mandals in Shivajinagar, said speaker-related expenses alone could consume anywhere between 50% and 80% of a mandal’s budget. Even a small mandal can spend around Rs 50,000 on speakers, bass units, lighting and generators. For larger mandals, that figure can climb to Rs 3 lakh,” he said. Vijay Sonawane, a worker with Shri Ganesh Mandal in the Sinhagad Road area, said expenses typically ranged from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh depending on the size of the setup.
Like us, many mandals across Pune spend substantial amounts on speakers and music arrangements,” he said. “We conduct several cultural programmes every year, but a sizeable portion of the budget still goes towards sound arrangements,” said office bearer Shubham Kale. Apart from speakers, lighting costs have also risen sharply over the last three to four years,” Sonawane said.
For decades, deafening DJs, towering speaker stacks and booming bass systems have been as much a part of Pune’s festival celebrations as Ganapati idols. But this year, many mandals could end up saving lakhs of rupees as strict police restrictions on sound systems force organisers to turn down the volume. Located in Nana Peth, Shivshakti Tarun Mandal has long been among those spending heavily on speakers. The story is similar in Ghorpade Peth, where Hanuman Mandal has traditionally invested heavily in loudspeakers despite organising a range of cultural events during the festival. “Most mandals prefer splurging either on decorations or on sound systems. In my experience, more mandals choose the latter. In Pune’s peripheral areas, the competition for louder and larger sound systems has remained particularly intense.
“Many mandals had already booked their sound systems well before the festival.