The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Cash crunch affects Krishnadevaraya fete

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Tuesday, Jun 08, 2010
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Cash crunch affects Krishnadevaraya fete

M. Malleswara Rao

HYDERABAD: The financial crunch faced by the government and other factors appear to have affected the earlier plan to celebrate the 500 {+t} {+h} anniversary of Sri Krishnadevaraya in a big way.

The Cabinet sub-committee headed by Information & Culture Minister J. Geetha Reddy has decided to confine the celebrations to one month -- from July 5 to August 8, instead of holding several events spread across one year as originally proposed.

The view taken by the committee, at its second meeting held on June 5, sources said, was that the 500th year of the Vijayanagar ruler's coronation began on August 9, 2008 and ended on August 7, 2009. The coronation itself took place at Hampi on August 8, 1509.

The year-long celebrations, if planned, should have been organised from August 9, 2008 to August 7, 2009.

The committee found that the officials committed a mistake by not informing the Government about this aspect. Consequently, the Government woke up on the need to holding the celebrations only when Karnataka organised a concluding ceremony of its celebrations at Hampi and other places recently.

Also, the committee scaled down the allocation for the celebrations from Rs 5 crore to Rs. One crore.

This will be just adequate to organise the events at identified places like Hyderabad, Penukonda, Simhachalam, Kondaveedu, Kondapalli, Chandragiri, Udayagiri, Srikakulam (Krishna district), Khammam and Potnur.

The plan to build a museum at a cost of Rs. 10 crore to perpetuate the memory of Sri Krishnadevaya has also been shelved. The project may now be taken up with private investment though PPP mode, a senior official said.

The proposal to invite UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi or Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as chief guest to the concluding ceremony planned at Penukonda has also been scrapped.

A decision has been to invite President Pratibha Patil for the purpose.

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