VIZAG matters - Sohan Hatangadi's Blog

The ugly face of Tenneti Park.   All these Styrofoam  plates will long outlive  several of our coming  generations. Styrofoam lasts 500 years, and even after it has dissolved it's chemical traces will clog our ecosystem.    This is what happens with "beach tourism". Great to talk about it  but after it is set up it is no one's baby!

Good time to extract our heads from the clouds and get back to basics.  Five crores spent on Balloon festival, net result? Perhaps a hundred real extra tourists on one day at ARAKU!  Cost per tourist?  You work it out. Five crores divided by 6 lakhs earning citizens of Vizag. How much did each of us contribute through our tax money for that balloon Fest? You work it out! Big noise about heli-tourism now gone phut! Interpretation centres - Rs. 1.5 crores each already spent on Thotlakonda and Bavikonda  in 2015- 2016, lying incomplete and unused for 2 years! How much loss of interest in non usable assetd? Our money squandered. Which official is responsible for this? Meanwhile no functional loos at any of our premium Buddhist sites Thotlakonda and Bavikonda! An apology of a loo at Bojjanakonda. ARAKU is a rubbish dump, road sides full of defecation, tons of garbage and plastic everywhere. The dirtiest of eastern ghat towns! Time now for govt to ...

As in January 2017 and now in Dec 2017  temple replicas have been put up on the beach for Visakha Utsav which is essentially a tourist promotion event. Cardboard temples 1.Faith is personal and the state government encouraging such mass promotion of temples in the name of tourism does not reflect a modern society. 2. The government is making a commercial "franchise" out of these temples. Like a branded store opening branches in different areas. Places of religious worship have a sanctity of its own by virtue of being there for centuries. The idea that we build Plaster of Paris models of those temples and prey upon the visitor's faith somehow appears dishonest. 3. The Constitution of India recognises all religions equally. We are a secular and pluralistic country. If we build temples why not mosques, churches and Gurudwaras? Are we making temples because we are a majority Hindu area? There is something  morally wrong in this thinking. 4. If we want religio...

Our local events make sure that the performers and the audience are kept well apart. VVIPs and VIPs occupy the entire space near the stage. Performers hate this, they cannot connect with the audience. The crowds hate this because they cannot communicate their appreciation to the performers. The VVIPs are busy folk and often do not turn up keeping the front white sofas and seats vacant. It is disheartening to see excellent performances not getting audience response because they are simply too far away. This my friends has been going on for a long long time. It is surprising that those professional event managers who are paid tons of money to deliver a good show just toe the government line and keep following this old established official political format. We understand that security is an issue when VVIPs are there. That is why we should not mix business with pleasure when it comes to events. Now Visakha Utsav is around the corner, crores of our tax money will be spent on...

Oooh what fun, give away all our land to "investors" for a HUNDRED YEARS! Let there be hotels and resorts all over. Who wants farms? Who wants schools? Who needs vocational centres? Who needs parks? Who needs stadiums? Who needs hospitals. Why bother about keeping space for flora and fauna? Who needs grazing pastures? Just flatten everything and give away the lands to the money bags for a song  If your grand kids want a bit of land some thirty years from now, to do their own business, they will have to wait a short time ... like a hundred years!  The outrageous demands of the so called "tourism sector" is scary. And our young tourism minister seems to be buying into these ridiculous arguments. There seems to be no one presenting a counter argument. If Vizagites and the media keep quiet we will be doomed. DON'T JUST READ THIS ... SHARE IT! Read more about in the below link Investment friendly tourism policy

14 to 16 November 2017 As a tourist event this was most ineffective. Visitors to the event were mainly Vizagites with a few from surrounding districts and Hyderabad. Pretty pictures but that's it It will be argued that the images of the colourful balloons floating over pristine green meadows inserted into emedia and airline magazines will give Araku a great boost. True, but when the tourists come where will the stay? Where will they go? What will they do? Already hordes of tourists from Bengal and other states come in the colder months stressing the town to its limits. These are quantity tourists with low power capita expenditure and is the worst thing that can happen to this eco sensitive part of our Eastern Ghats. Araku is damaged goods it is hardly ready for any more tourists.  Did we sell our tourism to those who came? The organisers did not even take the opportunity to sell our destination to the foreign balloon crew. They had no clue of the social, heri...

Today a light drizzle stopped the hot air balloon in its track.  This morning's flying  event was cancelled due to inclement weather. This evening a display of the balloons tethered (tied to the ground) and lit up will be displayed at NTR grounds.  Visitors to the event were mainly Vizagites. It will be interesting to know how many real "tourists" came to the venue. I am not talking about the event organizers and the 15-20 foreigner balloonists. I am talking about  genuine domestic or international  tourists. Then divide the expenditure by the incremental number of tourists who visited and we will get a huge per tourist expenditure.  The figure for expenditure is being mentioned as 5 crores. Say we got around 100 tourists that too is a generous figure. We will end up with something like 7L per tourist! Sounds awesome doesn't it? Incidentally this is all public money. That means your money and mine. Cheers. Don't just read this ... share it...

We go to our beaches for relaxation and some peace.  But now days, every day, we are confronted with more cacophony and chaos there. Our beaches are destination for myriad events. Variety programs,  food festivals, musical shows, marathons,  flash dances, protests, rallies, parties, awareness drives, and  hundreds of other events. Ahaa! We get an idea  and head straight for the beach to show it off to the world! Every alternate day there is some noisy program on the beach road as if there is no other place anywhere in Vizag.  Every week we are impacted terribly by the mikes, sounds,  crawling traffic and increased pollution.  Every program results in tons of extra garbage which has to be cleared.  Please remember that we are paying the taxes which GVMC uses to clean the beach road every day.  I can appreciate that some program like NAVY DAY must be celebrated only on the beach but certainly not every miscellaneo...

Sustainable tourism a tool for development this year's theme of World Tourism Day appears to have been buried under an avalanche of exciting  tourism EVENTS coming to Vizag from 27th Sep to 2nd Oct.  You know how "creative" we are, We will have Rock Night, Retro Night, Melody Night and glitzy Bollywood performers entertaining the entertainment starved populace of Vizag. These  programmes will be held on our one and only BEACH ROAD already bursting with local crowds. So please expect the blasting blare of speakers and "mike testing halla...halla...halla" late into the night every night on the beach with the local boys hanging around. And the MC yelling "GOOD EVENING VIZAGGGGGG!" While the whole world takes up frivolous issues like Sustainable Tourism we have decided to be  intellectually fresh and different ... we  have decided to have SONG & DANCE Not to forget "new" programmes like Children's painting contest,  elocutio...

Share this - save our environment and save ourselves Pristine waterfall is treated as a bathroom

There is no doubt that a vibrant filming industry not only generates welcome revenue but - if  the context of the film is right - it shows the city in favourable light making it an attractive destination. For example "Lord of the rings" NEW ZEALAND, "Game of thrones" CROATIA  or "When Harry met Sejal" in PRAGUE, AMSTERDAM,  VIENNA to name a few. Switzerland has got a thriving filming industry popularizing it's towns such as ENGELBERG. However in every such place the rules for shooting films are well defined and stringent. Especially rules against polluting the locations. In the India this is not the case. When travelling in Aru Valley Kashmir in 2015 we saw thousands of Styrofoam plates strewn in green grasslands by a film crew shooting a Hindi film. Closer to home in Anjoda on the outskirts of Araku, after every shoot, the beautiful wooded forests are full of plastic packets, plates and plastic cups. Outdoor film shoots are a mess. In Vizag...

A few days ago I had written about the need to have a clear policy on waterfalls management. Please see the message that follows. I realise that for many this sounds like a far-fetched idea. "What impact could a waterfall in the Eastern ghats miles away from us have on us?" we may ask. We may feel that it is just an intellectual exercise with no real value. The fact is that it DOES IMPACT US in more ways than one but I will leave that to another occasion to expand. Coincidentally I visited several water flow sites in the hills some with waterfalls and others with water flowing over rocks. It was shocking to see that all these sites were filthy and in a few years will become unbearable to visit. The tourism department's objective is to show that they have developed a new tourist spot. They do not give a damn about how these spots can be maintained. A simple argument they have is "anyway visitors are coming here, all we are doing is making steps so...

Despite being among the first to enter the Smart City race Vizag is one of the lowest spenders so far. Talk and action are miles apart. To read more, catch up the below link on business world Smart Cities: The Sad State Of Affairs

A 3 minute YouTube of our Heritage Walk in Old Vizag on 18th April 2017, World Heritage Day. Please watch the video and do take a moment to comment and share.  Please click on the KEEP READING  link below and then on the video to see the movie

World Heritage Day – a call to save our past Appeared in the Times of India on  17 April 2017 World Heritage Day - 18 April Tomorrow, 18th April is World Heritage Day. In 1982, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) based in France, announced 18 April as the "World Heritage Day", approved by the General Assembly of UNESCO in 1983, with the aim of enhancing awareness of the importance of the cultural heritage of humankind, and redouble efforts to protect and conserve our heritage.  In 2017, the theme is  “Cultural Heritage & Sustainable Tourism” , chosen in relation to the United Nations International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development and in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals. What is heritage? What is Heritage in the first place? An explanation from the INTACH book titled “INTACH Jago” goes like this: “Heritage refers to something inhe...

Say goodbye to our beaches Appeared in Times of India Vizag Edition on 03 April 2017 Vizag is a coastal city and the best part of living in a place like this is access to our beautiful beaches. We take for granted our right to walk on to the beach sand and wade in the waters of the Bay of Bengal. Do we need permission to visit the beach? Do we have to buy a ticket to enjoy the sea? Obviously not! That is because the sea is our common property and a public place that we can visit any time we want to. But is this going to change soon? Old timers will recollect the beaches of old Vizag with nostalgia. Most of the Vizagites lived in the “Old Town” near Visakhapatnam Port Trust channel. Families lived within a few hundred yards of the beach, and children played on the beach and swam in the sea whenever they could. Hundreds of fishing boats lined the beach and fishermen went fishing every day to bring in a bounty of fish that they sold at the beach or in the markets making a decent l...