Essar to foot kite festival bill

The government had earlier made Reliance the official sponsor of the Navratri festival, which was organised for the domestic as well as international firms and individuals participating in the 'Vibrant Gujarat-Global Investors' Summit'. The state government has organised a series of events for the patang utsav from January 12 to 14.

The programmes include holding of an international kite festival, a cultural event and taking the invitees on tours to locations and showing them how the festival is observed here.

The state government officials will hold a series of meetings with the NRGs to explore areas where investments could come in.

Equipped with new industrial, mining and tourism policies, the state government will try and get NRGs to invest and set up units back home.

Although Essar does have a public relations department, it has sought the services of Grey Worldwide to publicise the event.

Incidentally, Grey Worldwide also was in charge of publicity for the Global Investors' Summit held a couple of months ago.

"We are doing the creative campaign for Essar, which is sponsoring the event," said Pankaj Madholkar, vice president of Grey Worldwide.

Without disclosing the financial terms of the deal, Madholkar said the creative campaign will be launched all over the state.

But sources in the state government said Essar will spend Rs 5-7 crore on the event that will see the presence of around 6,000 invitees, almost all of them non-resident Gujaratis.

Officials of Essar confirmed that Grey Worldwide will take charge of publicising the event, but did not provide figures of the costs that will be involved in the exercise.

Over 50 participants from all over the country, and an equal number from other countries are expected to take part in the international kite-flying festival that will be promoted on a much larger scale this year than it was done in the past.

For the past few years, the kite festival is being organised in Ahmedabad, but this year it will feature many more participants.

The budget for this programme, to be held on January 12, is expected to be around Rs 25 lakh, but this might go up if the number of participants increases.

Officials of the Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Ltd (TCGL) said participants from the United States, Canada, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand and Australia have already confirmed their participation in the event to be held at the Police Stadium in the Shahibaug area of Ahmedabad.

"There could be more foreign participants from South American countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Chile, but there are no direct flights from these places and the participants also have problems in securing transit visas," said an official.

On the same evening, the state government has planned a cultural extravaganza, which will be held at the GMDC ground beside the 132-feet Ring Road near Gujarat University.