Hyderabad: Hyderabad’s most awaited annual extravaganza, the 45-day All India Industrial Exhibition, popularly called Numaish, is likely to open for people to visit from the second week of March 2021.
Speaking to siasat.com, exhibition Society secretary, Dr. B Prabha Shankar said, “The exhibition could not be organized on regular dates due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the situation is getting back to normal in Hyderabad, we are trying to open from March 15 and 50 percent of the stalls have been filled. This week we will get the confirmation from the government.”
Prabha Shankar said, priority will be given to the safety of visitors, and all the standard operating procedures (SOP’s) guidelines prescribed by the government will be followed. Social distancing must be maintained and all precautions are taken to ensure maximum space between the stalls.
In the wake of the COVID-19, health minister Eatala Rajender, who is also the president of the Nampally exhibition society, on December 31 last year had announced the postponement of Numaish.
He had said that it has been postponed for a few days due to a rise in cases of COVID-19. He also added that the exhibition has not been suspended, but only postponed.
The owner of the Imperial Sweet House, Ali Hussaini, who has been setting up the stall for the last three years, said: “We filled the forms for the stall in October last. When we went to the exhibition society office yesterday, the exhibition officials said that it will begin on March 15. ”
The exhibition usually starts from January 1 every year and goes on till February 15 and witnesses a footfall of 40,000 visitors. Numaish represents a wide variety of products alluring every visitor and selling all kinds of items, ranging from consumer durables and clothes to crockery, toys and the city’s best street food. About two thousand stalls from different states are established in this exhibition.
Sania Amrin who has been a visitor every year says, “My family and I always prepare ourselves 15 days in advance before January 1 of every year. We plan what all we need to shop; we save money for those 45 days which is worth the wait.”
Numaish first began during the rule of Hyderabad’s last Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan in the year 1938. The first exhibition event witnessed 100 stalls and was organized at the Public Gardens by a group of Osmania University graduate students. Later the venue was shifted to Exhibition Grounds, Nampally, which is its present venue.