TBM Staff - Mumbai The nine-day Mumbai International Festival will be held between January 20 and 28 next year, the state government has decided after months of planning.
It will be held every year from 2024 onwards along the lines of the Dubai International Festival. It has also been decided to form a foundation that will plan the festival, decide its scope, destination, formulate guidelines and take all policy decisions among other things.
The Mumbai International Festival Foundation would be chaired by Anand Mahindra, business tycoon and chairperson of Mahindra and Mahindra Group and will have icons such as Sachin Tendulkar as its members.
The decision was taken in the state cabinet meeting. It would be the biggest festival ever with a vast cultural line-up, music fest, fun, food and fiesta in store for revellers. The festival has been planned to promote tourism and establish the city as an international tourist destination.
To make it unprecedented, the Directorate of Tourism (DoT) is working to organise all popular festivals such as Kala Ghoda, Bandra Fair, Banganga, Worli Mahotsav and Mumbai Marathon during the same period. The foundation will also help to make it possible.
Other than Mahindra and Tendulkar, the foundation, which would be a 13-member body, will have the chief secretary as deputy chairperson.
The body will also have BMC commissioner, police commissioner, principal secretary tourism, Harsh Jain, CEO & co-founder of Dream11 & Dream Sports, Amitabh Chaudhry, managing director and chief executive officer, Axis Bank, Ronnie Screwvala, film producer, Neerja Birla, chairperson of Aditya Birla Education Trust (ABET), tourism director and others as directors.
The government has also appointed actor Sachin Pilgaonkar, filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar and heads of hotel association, mall association, Credai and Indian association of tours operators as special invitees.
The state has made a provision of INR 25 crore for marketing of the festival. (Source The HT)
