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3-day Visakha Utsav kicks off today
Highlights
The much hyped three-day Visakha Utsav may end up a damp squib failing to draw international and national tourists. The festival dates were announced in the first week of this month and it was slated for December 25. But due to requests from the minority organisations, it was deferred to January 1. Though tourists are arriving in large numbers, they have been moving to Borra Caves, Araku Valley, Ananthagiri and Lambasinghi to experience the extreme cold conditions. They are unlikely to witness any of the utsav events.
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Visakhapatnam: The much hyped three-day Visakha Utsav may end up a damp squib failing to draw international and national tourists. The festival dates were announced in the first week of this month and it was slated for December 25. But due to requests from the minority organisations, it was deferred to January 1. Though tourists are arriving in large numbers, they have been moving to Borra Caves, Araku Valley, Ananthagiri and Lambasinghi to experience the extreme cold conditions. They are unlikely to witness any of the utsav events.Taking into count, the increasing number of tourists visiting Araku Valley, the East Coast Railways has decided to launch special passenger trains to the Valley on January 2 and 3.
The organising committee has arranged the main venue at RK Beach, flower show at VUDA Park and folk dances at Jaatara in Madhurawada. Cultural programmes will be held at all the venues. Playback singers Chitra, SP Balasubrahmanyam Usha Uthup will regale the audiences at the main venue on all the three days i.e; on January 1, 2 and 3.
Students of GITAM University Kaushik and Rajdeep said: “We have seen Konark, Ujjain and Goa festivals, which have been attracting a large number of tourists from other States as well as foreign, but Visakha Utsav was not being organised on those lines”. Minister for HRD Ganta Srinivasa Rao had a series of meetings with the officials to make it a success, but it’s going to end up like last year. Local people are also not evincing much interest in the festival as many of them made arrangements to visit Lambasinghi and Araku Valley during this weekend. Others are confining themselves to private parties.
Officials are also not expecting much crowd from outside the State though the main intention of the government was to showcase the tourist spots to the outside world. None of the Buddhist shrines were given a facelift though the government has announced last year that the sites would be developed, he pointed out.
“We were busy with the arrangements for Partnership Summit, which will begin on January 10 and IFR in the first week of February, both the international events. We have made the city clean and beautiful and that should attract the tourists”, said a senior official.
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