March 31: Even if Rann Utsav was one of the most celebrated festivals in India, this year’s festival in Gujarat’s Kutch region recorded a poor tourist footfall by over half. The colourful cultural fest is every year attended by lakhs of tourists, however, the same did not happen this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Rann Utsav is celebrated in the Kutch region of Gujarat and this festival offers people an opportunity to understand and learn about the rich culture of Gujarat.
Jawahar Chavda serving as the tourism minister quoted that nearly 2,06,056 tourists had participated in the Rann Utsav in the year 2020as compared to the 2019 count which was 4,38,125. Among the total count, only 20 foreign tourists were a part of the festival while 2019 saw 4,457 foreign tourists attending the festival.
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Similar to this, the other popular international festivals in the Gujarat state like Navratri and the kite festival also witnessed a huge shrink in the count of foreign travellers. Other than this, the tourism department had spent a lot less amount in event organising as compared to their previous year’s investment.
The tourism department spent nearly Rs. 18.9 crore in 2020 as compared to Rs. 35.8 crore in 2019. With this, their earnings also dipped. With the help of the entry fee, the government was only able to earn Rs. 1.45 crore in 2020 against Rs. 2.10 crore in 2019.
The minister also informed that in 2020, the government had spent Rs. 9.78 crore only on Rann Utsav but had spent Rs. 5.12 crore back in 2019.
