New Delhi: Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah, who is also the chairman of the North Eastern Council will virtually inaugurate “Destination North East-2020” on Sunday.
According to an official release, Destination North East is a calendar event of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region conceptualised with the objective of taking the North East Region to other parts of the country and bringing them closer together in order to strengthen national integration.
Union Minister of State (Independent Charge), Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh will be the Guest of Honour in the event.
For Destination North East 2020, the theme is “The Emerging Delightful Destinations”, which speaks of the tourism destinations emerging stronger and more attractive when the sector picks up momentum. The programme focuses mostly on tourism and coincides with ‘World Tourism Day’, which falls on September 27, 2020.
The four-day programme will feature audio-visual presentation of the tourist spots of the states and the region, messages from state icons and achievers, introduction to prominent local entrepreneurs and virtual exhibition of handicraft/ traditional fashion/ and local products.
There will be special messages from the state Chief Ministers and Tourism Ministers as well as cultural items of individual states and medley performances combining cultures of all the eight states.
Earlier, this week unveiling the logo and song for festival “Destination North East-2020”, Dr Jitendra Singh said the Festival Destination North East has been travelling across the country since the last couple of years, from Varanasi in 2019 to the Lawns of India Gate in New Delhi or in Chandigarh before that and now it will be virtually reaching to your homes this year.
He said, the festival is not just about tourism, but it is an invitation to the organisations and especially to the young entrepreneurs who would like to avail the advantage of unexplored potentials of the region.
Dr Jitendra Singh said the northeastern region will be one of the favourite tourist and business destinations of India post COVID-19 and will be an important engine for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s clarion call of Atmanirbhar Bharat by focussing on “Vocal for Local”.
He said, the event “Destination North East 2020” is also an effort to make everyone explore the local destinations rather than going anywhere abroad.
The minister said people should take a pledge to ‘Visit Local, Travel Local and Explore Local thus giving a boost to the local Tourism and Hospitality industry. Moreover, he added that by remaining corona free mostly, northeast offers a very safe and attractive tourist destination in the entire World.
The chief guest for the closing ceremony on September 30 will be Kiren Rijiju, Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, while Rameshwar Teli, Union Minister of State for Food Processing Industries will join as Guest of Honour.