The State government appears to be in no mood to continue the famed Diviseema Boat Festival, an annual traditional festival held near the confluence point of river Krishna with the Bay of Bengal.
The earlier regime under the aegis of former Chief Minister N.Chandrababu Naidu had conducted the annual festival successfully since 2017, roping in the Tourism Department to give a fillip to tourism in the island of Diviseema.
Locals set the sails
Initially, a group of locals had introduced the boat festival marking Sankranti, the harvest festival, at Nagayalanka Ghat. The Ghat has also been found to be one of the safe water bodies for water sports, for which a dedicated academy was under construction by the Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh (SAAP) to groom local communities in water sports.
In 2019 January, a whopping 72 teams participated in the Diviseema Boat Festival. Races were conducted in two categories - Traditional Boat Race and Dragon Boat Race - at the Nagayalanka Ghat with the support of the Tourism Department.
Moored for now
Speaking to The Hindu, Avanigadda MLA Simhadri Ramesh said: “The Diviseema Boat Festival cannot be conducted this January (2020) owing to lack of financial resources both from the local communities as well the Tourism Department. We willattempt to resume it in 2021”.
Mr. Ramesh has also revealed that the stakeholders, who spent money to conduct the festival in 2019 January, were yet to be paid by the State government. The pending bills exceed ₹ 28 lakh, according to sources.
