MLA resents filmy fetes on beach road

Visakhapatnam: Many people have expressed their resentment over the holding of public events, resulting in traffic restrictions and diversions on the beach road, especially during weekends.

The beach front will always witness huge crowds, especially on holidays and festivals. The visitors to the beach are facing tough times when the civic and police department authorities allowmega public events and cinema shootings there. The people have made an appeal to themnot to allow any movie shootings and public events near the beach. 

During the shooting of Nandamuri Balakrishna’s film ‘Simha’ on the Beach Road, the visitors who came to the  beach were put to lot of inconvenience as one side of the road was completely blocked. Several petitions were filed by intellectuals, associations and environmentalists to the State government not to allow private events on the beach front.

However, on Ugadi (Telugu New Year) day, thousands of visitors thronged the beach road, but due to the pre-release function of the RamcharanTeja’s‘Rangasthalam’ held on the beach,they had to face lot of trouble. 

After receiving numerous complaints from public against traffic restriction on the beach road on Sunday due to pre-release of ‘Rangasthalam’ movie, Visakhapatnam (South) MLA Vasupalli Ganesh Kumar (TDP) met the Commissioner of Police T Yoganand on Mondayand urged him not to allow such private events with celebrities on weekends when thousands of people with their family members hit the beach front and nearby areas to spend their evenings.  

Speaking to the media after meeting Commissioner Yoganand, MLA Ganesh Kumar said that he receiveda number of complaints from the several people on Sunday, alleging that the beach road was blocked and public access to the beach where the arrangements were being put up was denied for three days prior to the event. 

“Many people from different parts of the city and tourists who visited with a lot of enthusiasm had to find only the restrictions and return disappointed. If the district administration takes measures, the public would not have suffered for the last three days. I urge the administration to keep the public interest first, while according permission to private programmes in future,” the TDP MLA said.

Not only visitors and tourists, even the residents residing near the beach road have also been complaining of the traffic restrictions owing to various events, due to the traffic diversions, Ganesh Kumar added.