Visakhapatnam gears up to host 4 events

Visakhapatnam: The Visakhapatnam city is gearing up to host four more events in the next two weeks. A three-day international tech conference, inauguration of heli-tourism and a three-day Visakha Utsav from December 28 will be held in the city. Meanwhile, the District Development Review meeting will also held on December 23.

With the series of events at both national and international level being held in the city, the entire district administration has been busy in making arrangements and other protocol duties. After bifurcation of the state, as there is no alternative city in the state, the government has been selecting the port city for all events. However, with the hectic busy in planning, majority of the officials of all the departments are not even reviewing their activities periodically.

After the Hudhud cyclone, VVIPs and VIPs visits to the city almost increased many times. The then President Pranab Mukherjee in 2016 and present President of India Ram Nath Kovind this month visited the city. Meanwhile, Vice President of India M Venkaiah Naidu and Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu tours to the city increased frequently.

“It is not Port City or Steel City, the Visakhapatnam city has become an Event City. We are not spending our time to review and handle the regular duties. No minister, secretary and commissioner not even asking us what is happening in the department. Every day review meetings and running pillar to post for planning the events.

For the last one-and-half years, there is no review meeting in my department and no higher official is asking us. Again, for Visakha Utsav and Chief Minister and VVIPs visits in the next two weeks, we must plan. We are group-1 officers become event managers,” a senior official of a key department handling huge funds for welfare programmes lamented.