Gujarat’s big tourist event – Kutch Rann Utsav begins
Gujarat’s big tourist event – Kutch Rann Utsav begins today
By our correspondent
Bhuj, DeshGujarat, 1 December, 2009
Gujarat’s one of the most successful tourist events, Kutch Rann Utsav – 2009 begins today at Bhuj.
There are total 400 tents for about 600 tourists this time in Kutch Rann utsav according to Tourism minister of Gujarat. 100 tents are AC and 300 non AC.
Tents for tourists are named after important tourist places of Kutch, such as Jesal Toral, Koteshwar, Dhrang etc.
A small group of tents will serve as dining hall, photo gallery, exhibition etc.
Tourists will spend night in their tent and in day time they will be taken to various tourist places of Kutch.
Whole tent city has been divided into five circles. Circle-1 will have seven-star royal tents of the Chief Minister and ex-President of India Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. Foreign diplomats of various nations will occupy 12 tents. Circle-2 contains 33 A category tents for corporate houses and core diplomatic staff. Circle-3 will have 25 AC tents for ministers of Gujarat. 10 tents in the same circle will accommodate senior IAS officers of the state.
Rann Utsav events
1 December: Tourists will be welcomed in Bhuj. They will be given complimentary stay in various hotels of Bhuj. They will be taken to Hamirsar lake to witness Kutch Carnival parade. After this parade, the tourists will enjoy dinner in central part of Harmirsar lake. Then the tourists will be taken to Dhordo tent city. They will be alloted their tents for night stay.
2 December: After breakfast, the tourists will be taken to Kalo Dungar(black hills). They will also be taken to Dhrobana village where they will enjoy traditional fair. The next destination will be Hodko village where rural tourism hotel has been set up. The tourists will take their lunch at Khavda and will be back to Dhordo tent city by 4 pm.
After couple of hours break, they will be taken to white Rann of Kutch at around 6 pm. The tourists will be sitting in camel carts to reach white salty surface of rann of Kutch. A stage right in the rann will rock with traditional music of Kutch. The tourists will come back to Dhordo tent city at around 8pm to have dinner.
3 December: Tourists will be taken to package tour of their choice. While one trip will go to India-Pakistan border, another will go to Narayan Sarovar-Mata no Madh-Lakhpat fort-Mandvi etc places. All tourists will come back to Dhordo city by night.
4 December: Tourists will be taken to Bhuj. End of Kutch Rann utsav.
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HOW GUJARAT…………AND GUJARATI PEOPLE BECOME………RICH……….LIVES WITH DIGNITY
AND PRIDE ?????????////
1) WHEN ALL…..NRI …..SEND TOURIST TO GUJARAT ALL GUJARATI BECOME RICH.
2) PUT PRESSURE ON GUJARAT GOVT………….TO START TOURISM UNIVERSITY……MUSEUM……
TOURIST POINT…………TOURIST CHANNEL…….MEGAZINE……..GUJARAT STORE………TRIBAL STORE IN GUJARAT
I wish I could attend this event…
I didn’t understand one thing… If they’ll have many Government officials and ministers occupying tents, they are not going to pay anything, right? So how its going to make money? and how its going to boost tourism?
Dear Param Sneh,
Sadly, you are perfectly right.
Ministers including the Chief Minister are burden to this festival.
I remember in 2007 when I visited Kutch Rann Utsav, everything was revolving around the Chief Minister. When tourists went to Kalo Dungar excursion, they had to wait for nearly 30 minutes to let the Chief Minister’s convoy pass from there. Chief Minister and other ministers stay in King size tents that are like Badshah Akbar’s tent. The tent in which Chief Minister stays is more costly than Mumbai Taj hotel room. It has paintings, the best of the best Kashmiri carpet, excellent ethnic wooden furniture, lavish bath room and what not.
It is sad to say that this festival makes loss. The festival involves district administration. The money to organize this utsav on grand scale comes from rich industrialists.
The model is not sustainable. Tourism plus politicians never yield results. It should be purely and professionally a tourism event.
And funny thing is that the Chief Minister’s convoy sounds siren even while passing through the completely blank roads of Dhordo tent city. Ha ha …
@ Raj,
I was going to say the same thing. One of my American friend went to Gujarat to visit this tourism festival. After he came back from his Gujarat trip, he asked me the same thing that he didn’t understand why the ministers were there in the festivals and how come they were provided those great amenities inside the tent. I didn’t have any answer to his question at that time because I didn’t know much about this festival. I think this whole tourism festival is more about rhetoric than substance. In simple words, it is a just a hyped up festival.
The problem with tourism in Gujarat is that first of all, the tourism department has done a terrible job in previous years. Now they are slowly gaining the momentum under Modi Government but still they have a long way to go.
Secondly, I would say part of the fault lies on us too. We Gujaratis are known to travel all around the world but when it comes to our own state, most of us have not toured the state properly. Most of the time the purpose of the visit was for pilgrimage and to visiting temples.
Third, Gujarat unfortunately does not have many popular tourist destinations to begin with. I mean we can count them in numbers and even among those few, the most popular ones are pilgrimage places like Ambaji, Pavagarh, Girnaar, Chotila, Palitana, Virpur, Dwarka, Somnath, Kamboi etc.
Forth, Places with natural beauty and historical significance lack proper infrastructure and were never promoted very well except Kevadia Colony and Gir Lion Sanctuary. Take for example Saputara which is a beautiful hill station but was never promoted properly. Nalsarovar was also neglected until last few years and now they have started developing the infrastructure in that area. Except the Gir Lion Sanctuary, no other national parks were given due importance whether it is the Blackbuck National Park in Velavadar, Bhavnagar or Marine National Park in Gulf of Kutch or Vansda National Park in Navsari or Wild Ass Sanctuary in Surendranagar. Places with historical importance like Dholaveera, Lothal, Adalaj Step Well etc. were not maintained properly.
Has anyone ever heard about Piram Island near Ghogha? It is a beautiful island but was never promoted. Even the best beach places like Tithal, Ubharat, Dummas and Chorwad were lacking proper infrastructure.
The sad part is that touring Gujaratis probably would have spent more time at Mount Abu and Diu and Daman than in State of Gujarat because they can drink alcohol there. Try to go to Diu and Daman or Mount Abu or Dadra Nagar Haveli and we all will know the reality with inflated hotel and food prices.
Anyways, the sad and real part of the situation is that Gujarat was never a favorite place for tourists for various reasons and it will never be a favorite destination for tourists for those various reasons, some of which are mentioned above. We are also competing with states like Rajasthan and Maharashtra who have a very healthy tourist number. I mean Thar Desert in Rajasthan can offer all the things what can be offered in Rann of Kutch and above those things, you have other historical cities in Rajasthan.
Talking about the Kutch Rann Utsav, if you do a survey and ask the Gujaratis randomly, I am sure majority would have visited Rajasthan but would not have visited Kutch. It is a shame for us but a sad reality.
^ Fantastic post.
Agree with most of it.