Kite festivals cancelled to accommodate foreigners at VGGIS

With the government apparently bent on shoring up all its mela ammunition to showcase a good presence of foreigners at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit (VGGIS) next week...

With the government apparently bent on shoring up all its mela ammunition to showcase a good presence of foreigners at the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit (VGGIS) next week,the casualty has been two kite festivals in Mehsana and Vadodara.

The Tourism Corporation of Gujarat (TCGL),which is organising the International Kite Festival from January 10 here,has been asked to wind up its plans of organising its festivals at Mehsana and Vadodara. Further,TCGL has been asked to divert all foreign kite experts to the VGGIS,once they are through with the Ahmedabad event.

Having such sub-events is an annual practice that was started to inculcate a sense of participation among the residents of different parts of the state. This also would gel well with Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s idea of having the Republic Day and Independence Day celebrations in towns and cities other than Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad,which have had a fair share of these celebrations.

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But this time,after deciding to organise the kite festivals at Mehsana and Vadodara,TCGL bosses intimated these two districts’ authorities early this week that there would be no kite festival this year due to overlapping of the event schedules. Three days ago,they had sent a written communication about cancellation of the kite festival in Vadodara. Earlier,there was some discussion about Vadodara hosting the festival.

TCGL managing director P D Vaghela refused to comment on the issue.

There are nearly 140 foreign participants in the kite festival this year and they can serve as a good filler in case there were not enough trade delegates,sources said.

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