The tradition of public worship of Ganesha started by Lokmanya had also served the purpose of providing impetus to the freedom movement with the leader delivering inspiring speeches. The practice of setting up mandals has now spread to the entire country and also created a few problems such as extortion of donations, programmes that fail to reflect the piety of the occasion, noise and water pollution to name a few. It is gratifying to see that some government action has lead to regulation of the festival.
