Dhanbad Municipal Corporation (DMC) has launched the last leg of pond cleaning work on Tuesday ahead of Chhath.

The drive is being carried out over 100 ponds spread across all the 55 wards in the district. Cleaning of all large ponds, including Rani Talab, Bekar Bandh, Khokhan Talab, Manaitand Chhath Talab, among others, is being carried out and is likely to be completed by Wednesday.

DMC's sanitary inspector (Dhanbad circle) Arjun Ram said that they were removing wooden frames of Kali idols from the ponds. "The third and fourth rounds of cleaning were launched today (Tuesday). In the first round ahead of Durga Puja, water hyacinth and silt were removed. In the second round after the Puja, wooden frames of Durga idols were removed apart from other puja paraphernalia," he said.

Ram said they would sprinkle bleaching powder in each pond on October 5. Though the festival starts from Friday, the main Chhath festivities will fall on November 6 and 7.

Extensive cleaning up of Jharia's historic Raja Talab, which was a cesspool of filth and hyacinth, is also being carried out to make it fit for holy rituals.

There are, however, some hiccups.

Councillor of ward 37 Anup Sao claimed that the historic pond was dangerous as its bed had become asymmetrical after the desilting work carried out by the civic body earlier this year.

"The pond bed is asymmetrical and so I had requested the district administration to put barricades at vulnerable points," he said.