By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Nov 14: With the cherry flowers blossoming all over the city, the state government is all set to host the three-day grand extravaganza – Cherry Blossom Festival 2023 from November 17 in Ri-Bhoi district.
With the local and international headliners line-up awaiting to enthrall attendees from in and outside the state, the government is already anticipating a footfall of more than one lakh, however, there are also apprehensions as how will Shillong and its adjoining areas like Ri-Bhoi tackle such a massive crowd.
Meanwhile, the Meghalaya tourism department along with the police department held a review meeting on Tuesday to discuss about the preparations for the festival.
Ri Bhoi Deputy Commissioner, Arpit Upadhyaya along with SP of Ri-Bhoi Giri Prasad informed that they are fully prepared
and are going with a detailed plan at the entry and exit point.
“It will be very smooth and we have identified parking places and for coordination too, we also have a medical camp in place, so we are fully prepared for hosting a successful Cherry Blossom Festival,” the deputy commissioner, said.
He further added that traffic arrangements are in place and they have a detailed deployment of forces and even within specified parking spaces trained volunteers and police constables will be deployed to take care of the flow of traffic.
Concerning the opposition that the festival is held on a Sunday, Ri Bhoi SP, Giri Prasad said there is no opposition as the Tourism department has informed the village heads that the timings have been changed and will not disrupt the church service.
Apart from this, the flow of one lakh tourists in three days is also expected to increase the number of vehicles in Shillong and Ri-Bhoi as it is expected that traffic management would be a big challenge especially on the city roads which is now full of potholes.
However, an official of the PWD (Roads) informed that repairing of the roads in the city has already started and the executive engineer has been instructed to expedite the work.
It is also seen that the Umiam-Shillong road is also being repaired right now.
Federation of Shillong Hotels president, Parambir Singh Sehdave told The Shillong Times that the figure, one lakh tourists visiting the festival appears very ambitious.
Informing that bookings in hotels are good in prime locations, he however added that the impact at the moment does not seems too much in non-prime locations even as he added that right now, around 70-80 percent occupancy is there.
It may be mentioned that when the first edition of the festival was held, literally everything in the festival was free but this year, a single GA Season Pass for three days would cost over Rs 3800 while a VIP Season Pass for three days would cost more than Rs 12000.