pune gennext is different coffee shops multiplexes and pubs do not interest them what gives them a high is preventing rivers from being polluted it all began four years ago with a small group of collegians urging people not to immerse their ganesh idols into rivers now the initiative has snowballed into a large energetic movement the friends society fs the aundh collegians group acg friends of nature and the many rotaract clubs in the city all comprising collegians are successfully involved in convincing puneites not to pollute rivers with idols the fs headed by the energetic darshan mundada a thirdyear mechanical engineering student at the mit college has put up as many as 13 centres in the city this year to collect ganesh idols the society will be handing over the idols to a group of idol manufacturers who will recycle the same for next year the collegians manning the 13 counters have been on their feet from 2 pm to 9 pm on september 1 5 6 and will be seen in action once again on tuesday the last day of the ganesh festival according to fs founder member harshal uktande they had collected 1000 idols by saturday evening and hoped to finish with a total of 2000 on tuesday theres no doubt that the fs volunteers are a dedicated lot says taruja parande a commercial art student from the abhinava kala mahavidyalaya manning the counter on the garware college bridge many people are conscious about nature and want to help we are the means through which they can contribute however the challenge is to convince the larger ganesh mandals to donate their idols at the aundh bridge too a group of collegians have been relentlessly trying to convince people not to pollute rivers pooja merchant a second year mbbs student of the d y patil college recalls standing alone at the aundh bridge four years ago with her friend prachi kaulgud a final year computer engineering student at the college of engineering pune collecting only nirmalya flowers today the acg has over 30 members from various colleges this year the acg has convinced aundh residents to immerse 800 idols into the pune municipal corporations pmc water tanks instead of a river says pooja maybe next year we must identify manufacturers of clay idols and convince people to buy only those ones this way we will be focussing on the root cause of the problem at the s m joshi bridge in navi peth collegians were assisting the rotary club of kothrud in convincing people to use pmc water tanks for immersion says priya kulkarni a second year information technology student at the mit college we have been working at the ghats for the last four years we have seen a marked improvement in the attitude of people this year even illiterate people agreed to use the pmc water tanks says dipti bhende a second year arts student from the fergusson college we wanted to make