One doesn’t know whether the Global Investors’ Summit held in Visakhapatnam on March 3 and 4 has yielded any significant gains for the YSR Congress party government in Andhra Pradesh, led by Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy. However, the government has spent a considerable amount on organizing the event.
According to sources, an amount of Rs 100 crore was spent only on event management, including the beautification of the venue, the Andhra University Engineering College grounds.
Sources also stated that the government spent around Rs 50 crore on publicity for the event, including advertisements in newspapers and electronic media, erection of hoardings, and other forms of outdoor publicity.
What is more surprising is that the Jagan government had spent more than Rs 25 crore on media management alone.
The task of managing the media was entrusted to a few media managers in the Chief Minister’s Office in coordination with the Information and Public Relations department.
From bringing media persons from Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, and other parts of the state to Visakhapatnam, the media managers were assigned to provide them with accommodation in star hotels and take care of other formalities.
Not many people from outside the state turned up for the event, but there were a large number of local reporters representing even unknown newspapers, including those from web portals and freelancers.
Someone commented that the reporters and camera persons seemed to have outnumbered the delegates at the conference.
“In spite of spending such a huge amount, the arrangements for the media were pretty bad. The food was bad, and there were not even proper drinking water facilities for the media,” he said.
There are allegations that a large amount of money allotted for media management was swindled.
“Even if the government provided star hotel accommodation for the media persons, it would not have cost so much money. Definitely, those media managers had pocketed big money,” a source said.
