The government of Gujarat will flag off its 'Vishwa Gujarati Parivaar Mahotsav' that will be held on Wednesday with the 'Vibrant Gujarat-Uttarayan 2004' celebrations, a cultural and musical extravaganza.
Over 160 experts from India and abroad will participate in a kite festival. A musical and cultural programme to be attended by a host of celebrities will also be organised on the occasion.
Chief Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the kite flying festival at the Police Stadium in Shahibaug, while Essar group chairman Shashi Ruia will be the guest of honour.
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The highlight of the event will be a kite flying competition by over 160 experts.
As many as 68 experts from 17 countries including Brazil, China, France, the US, the UK and Singapore will take part in the event.
Besides, 90 participants from various states in India too will take part in the event.
Although the kite festival in Ahmedabad is held every year, it is being organised on a much larger scale this year.
From holding an international kite festival to a cultural event and then taking invitees on tours to locations and showing them how the festival is observed here, the government of Gujarat has lined up a series of events from Monday to Wednesday.
Using this as the backdrop, state government officials will hold a series of meetings with the NRGs to explore areas where investments could come in.
Equipped with brand new industrial, mining and tourism policies, the state government will try and get NRGs to invest and set up units back home.
Essar, the sponsor of the event, has sought the services of Grey Worldwide in publicising the event. Incidentally, Grey Worldwide also was in charge of publicity for the Vibrant Gujarat-Global Investors' Summit held three months ago.
Essar will spend around Rs 7 crore (Rs 70 million) on the event that will see the presence of around 6,000 invitees.
Officials of the Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Ltd said with such a large number of participants from foreign countries scheduled to take part in the festival this year, the festival will now be marked as a tourism event every year.
The state government, as part of the new tourism policy, has decided to promote event-based tourism in Gujarat.
The state government has also planned a cultural extravaganza, which will feature singer Falguni Pathak and the Suyanakshar and Kalashree troupes.
The visiting NRGs are also scheduled to be taken on guided tours to Champaran, Hazira and Patan and after the visits, participants and visiting NRGs will spend January 14 watching the entire state flying kites from their rooftops.
While those visiting Hazira will go to Surat to watch the kite flying festival, those at Champaran will go to Vadodara and those at Patan will go to Mehsana.
Almost everybody in Gujarat spends January 14 and 15 on terraces of their buildings, flying kites.
