Mumbai to get a grand fest similar to Dubai Shopping Festival

Mumbai: The state government on Thursday announced plans to organise a festival in the city similar to the Dubai Shopping Festival

Mumbai: The state government on Thursday announced plans to organise a festival in the city similar to the Dubai Shopping Festival. Christened as Mumbai Festival, the state said the event will be held in November this year and they are expecting around 10 million people to attend.

HT Image

Tourism minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha said that the Mumbai Festival said that visitors attending this grand festival will offer attractive discounts to attract shoppers and visitors from around the world. “People across the world will participate in the festival. Tourism is one of the key sectors that help job generation to a large extent. The investment in the tourism industry would help Maharashtra to become a $1 trillion economy. It will help us in taking the state to the top position again,” Lodha said.

This is not the first time the state government has planned to replicate the Dubai Shopping Festival. During the tenure of the Congress-NCP government that came to power in 1999, then deputy chief minister Chhagan Bhujbal had announced plans to hold the Mumbai Shopping Festival through the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC). The government had also roped in various associations of retail traders but the plan was later dropped. Since then, the idea keeps being discussed periodically.

In order to attract more tourists, Lodha also announced an observation wheel called the Mumbai Eye, similar to the London Eye, one of the most popular tourist attractions in the capital city of the UK.

The idea was announced earlier by the previous Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government as well as Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). It was proposed at 1.5 acres in Bandra reclamation but has not progressed for technical reasons. Congress MLA Amin Patel demanded to set up Mumbai Eye to which the minister replied in affirmative.

Lodha also announced the tourist spot status to Kanheri caves in Sanjay Gandhi National Park and Vajreshwari temple in Bhiwandi tehsil in Thane. The temple is popular among devotees and popular also for the hot water springs near it. The announcements were done by the minister in the legislative Assembly while replying to the debate on the budgetary demands.