Hyderabad’s 5-kg Ganesh laddu fetches ₹1.01 crore at auction

Hyderabad’s Ganesh puja: Big on devotion, bigger on moolah

A 5-kg Ganesh laddu fetched ₹1.01 crore at Keerthi Richmond Villas in Bandlaguda Jagir this year, more than twice the ₹39 lakh paid for Balapur’s 21-kg laddu. The auction was separate from festival expenditure, with proceeds generally directed towards community development, welfare or other local causes.

The contrast captures the unusual scale of Hyderabad’s Ganesh Chaturthi economy, where the cost of celebration is measured not only in donations and sponsorships but also in transport, sound systems, cranes, electricity, manpower, food and public infrastructure.

There is no single account book for the festival in Hyderabad. The Bhagyanagar Ganesh Utsav Samithi (BGUS) estimates that Ganesh Chaturthi generates ₹6,000 crore to ₹7,000 crore in economic activity in the city. Other estimates put the figure at upwards of ₹10,000 crore when months of preparation are included.

A festival economy built around the idol

The spending begins well before an idol reaches the mandap. Money moves from organisers to idol-makers, tent-house operators, decorators, lighting contractors, transporters, sound-system providers, bands, flower sellers, caterers and other workers.

The amounts vary sharply according to the size of the celebration. A small neighbourhood mandap may spend relatively little on its idol, structure and decoration, while a larger installation can incur costs running into several lakhs on the pandal, lighting, flowers, manpower and other arrangements.

The BGUS says the festival provides direct employment to around two lakh families and indirect employment to another 4.5 lakh people. These figures cover an ecosystem that includes both specialised businesses and workers engaged for individual festival requirements.

The number of idols also indicates the scale of the activity, although the available registration figure covers the entire State rather than Hyderabad alone. According to Telangana Police, around 1.24 lakh Ganesh idols were registered on the State’s Ganesh portal this year.

Director General of Police C.V. Anand said the actual number across Telangana could range from 3.5 lakh to 4 lakh if idols installed in homes, apartments and other private premises were included. Expenditure, therefore, extends beyond large public mandaps and well-known processions to smaller and private celebrations as well.

The cost of spectacle

A helicopter showering flower petals over a Ganesh idol was one of the more visible examples of festival spending this year. On September 24, as an immersion procession moved towards the Hussainsagar, a six-seater Airbus H125 released flower petals over the idol from above.

The flower shower was organised by Hanuman Youth Association, which had installed the idol in Bowrampet. P.R. Singh, the owner of Singh Aerofarm in Sangareddy and a retired Indian Air Force squadron leader, said an aviation agent had contacted him for parking space for the helicopter.

“An aviation agent contacted me for parking space for the helicopter. It was to arrive from Bengaluru, shower petals on the second day and leave on the third. Since the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport and Begumpet Airport charge a lot, they looked at my aerofarm as a parking spot,” Singh said.

Singh estimated that the operation, including related arrangements, could have cost the organisers around ₹20 lakh. The helicopter appearance was brief, but the estimate reflects the logistical arrangements required even for a single element of the celebrations.

At Balapur, one of Hyderabad’s best-known Ganesh celebrations, the committee spent around ₹98 lakh on the festival last year, according to Kalyan Niranjan Reddy, chairman of the Balapur Ganesh Utsava Samithi. The amount covered the idol, workers, flowers, decoration and pandal arrangements.

The committee has not yet completed its accounts for this year. Reddy said around ₹30 lakh to ₹40 lakh was collected through chanda, or contributions. The remainder came from other donations, advertisements and sponsorships.

The Balapur procession creates additional work for transporters, sound operators and other service providers. Its 21-foot idol required a heavy vehicle, Reddy said. The vehicle, driver and diesel together cost around ₹40,000.

That expense feeds several parts of the transport chain, including vehicle owners, drivers and workers involved in loading and securing the idol. At major immersion points, cranes and other equipment are needed to lower idols into the water.

Sound, bands and traditional performances

The sound accompanying a procession is another significant expense. For a small mandap, a basic speaker arrangement can cost around ₹5,000 to ₹6,000, while a DJ setup can cost around ₹15,000 for eight hours, according to Hyderabad-based sound-system operator Mohammed Saber Hussain.

“Usually, DJs and sound operators have an eight-hour booking period because that is considered the industry standard,” Hussain said. The final amount depends on the size of the system, the equipment hired and the duration of the booking.

Larger packages that combine sound boxes, truss structures, lighting and DJ equipment can cost up to ₹75,000. Hussain said he also received a booking worth ₹2 lakh during this year’s festival season.

Customers bear the cost of generators and diesel, while the package price varies according to the equipment hired. This makes sound arrangements another flexible part of the festival budget, with costs rising as organisers choose larger systems and more elaborate combinations of equipment.

Traditional performers also find business during the festival. Marfa bands charged around ₹20,000 to ₹40,000 for performances this year, while popular troupes commanded ₹50,000 to ₹60,000 on immersion day.

Balapur follows a different musical tradition from many Hyderabad processions. The Balapur Ganesh Utsava Samithi does not hire DJs and has followed the tradition of playing bhajans on immersion day since the 1980s.

That choice does not eliminate the wider costs of the celebration. The committee’s total festival expenditure was around ₹98 lakh last year, reflecting the cumulative cost of the many arrangements required for the event.

Food and free electricity

Prasadam adds another layer of spending to the festival. The cost includes ingredients, cooking, packaging, transport and distribution, BGUS general secretary R. Shashidhar said.

At a large mandap, food distributed to thousands of devotees over several days can produce a substantial bill even when the cost per person is modest. The spending is therefore spread across food supplies, preparation and the movement of the prasadam before it reaches devotees.

The economic footprint also extends beyond festival organisers and private service providers to the government. The government provides electricity and deploys personnel and equipment for immersion arrangements.

This year, the Telangana Southern Power Distribution Company Limited supplied free electricity to 51,207 registered Ganesh idols and pandals across its 21 circles. The sanctioned connected load was 1.12 lakh kW.

The government’s estimated expenditure this year was ₹17.8 crore, up from ₹15.59 crore in 2025-26, when 47,649 pandals received free power. The figures cover the cost of supplying electricity to registered idols and pandals across the utility’s 21 circles.

Power utility staff worked round the clock to monitor feeders, transformers, lighting and emergency arrangements, particularly at major immersion points. Public spending also covers the personnel and infrastructure needed to manage the celebrations.

The machinery behind immersion

The immersion operation requires a large deployment of people and equipment. Anand said more than 25,000 police personnel were deployed in Hyderabad for immersion arrangements over the 10-day festival period.

Cranes, barricades, traffic management, sanitation, lighting, emergency services and waste removal add to the logistical costs. These arrangements are required alongside the private spending by committees on idols, pandals, processions and performances.

The cranes deployed along major routes show the engineering requirements involved in moving large idols. Syed Faraz and Syed Ausaf, owners of Super Cranes, which participates in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation’s immersion operations, said 10 cranes were deployed at NTR Marg and 12 at People’s Plaza.

Their capacities varied according to the size and weight of the idols. The owners said GHMC norms require cranes with a minimum capacity of 50 tonnes.

The Khairatabad Ganesh idol required a much larger machine for immersion. Faraz said it was handled by a SANY SAC 3000 crane with a capacity of 300 to 350 tonnes, an 80-metre main boom and 100 tonnes of counterweights.

Transporting the crane required at least three 40-foot trailers, accompanied by a signal-flag vehicle to guide the convoy through narrow roads and sharp turns. The six-axle crane has 12 tyres and may require traffic management even before it reaches the immersion site, the owners said.

“Moving such a machine to an immersion site is itself a logistical operation,” Faraz said. Each crane requires five skilled workers and a skilled rigger for safe lifting operations.

One supervisor is deployed for every five cranes. Workers are provided orange jerseys and identity cards at the immersion sites. Unlike private bookings by Ganesh committees, the immersion crane operations are awarded through the GHMC tender process.

The contract runs for 12 days. It includes 12-hour shifts during the first eight days and 24-hour shifts thereafter.

Operators inspect sites six to seven days before deployment. They assess the idol’s weight and height, lifting radius and other conditions to determine the required crane capacity and commercial terms.

Super Cranes executed the GHMC work in association with other crane operators deployed at various immersion points. The process links the movement of individual idols to a wider public operation involving contractors, skilled workers, supervisors, traffic management and municipal arrangements.

Auctions that sit outside the festival budget

If the festival has an economy of expenditure, it also has an economy of transactions whose value can be difficult to explain through production costs alone. Balapur’s famous 21-kg Ganesh laddu fetched a record ₹39 lakh at auction this year.

Sama Praneeth Reddy of Urban Realty Group won the bid, surpassing last year’s ₹35 lakh. Nine participants had registered for the auction, including representatives of five companies.

One bidder participated from London. The auction therefore drew participation beyond the immediate local setting, while the winning amount exceeded the previous year’s figure.

At Keerthi Richmond Villas in Bandlaguda Jagir, a 5-kg Ganesh laddu fetched ₹1.01 crore this year, compared with ₹2.31 crore last year. Although it weighed a quarter as much as Balapur’s laddu, it fetched more than twice the latter’s auction price.

The bids show that the value attached to a laddu can far exceed its production cost. In both cases, the auction proceeds were separate from festival expenditure and generally went towards community development, welfare or other local causes.

The festival’s financial scale is therefore spread across several distinct flows. Organisers raise and spend money on idols, pandals, decorations, food and processions, while businesses earn from the services and materials required to stage them.

Government agencies separately provide electricity, police deployment, cranes, traffic management, sanitation, emergency services and waste removal. Auctions create another stream in which the proceeds are directed towards local causes rather than being counted as ordinary festival expenditure.

There is no price tag on the festival itself. But almost every stage of putting it together, from installing an idol to lowering it into the lake, comes at a cost.

Together, the expenses, businesses, jobs and transactions generated by Ganesh Chaturthi form an economy that runs alongside the celebrations. The devotion remains at the centre, but the festival’s scale is sustained by an extensive network of organisers, workers, contractors, public agencies, donors, sponsors and bidders.

Source: The Hindu