Mangaluru: Water tourism-related festivals to be held soon?

Mangaluru: The surfing festival and river festival, which started a new wave of water tourism in the Dakshina Kannada district, is expected to organised again.

A national-level surfing festival in Sasihitlu and a river festival at the Kulur Phalguni River was launched to attract more tourists. Both festivals gained huge popularity and promised to open up a new era in marine-related tourism. But the government seemed to be not interested in continuing it.

However, many private organisations have now taken the initiative to launch these festivals. The two-day Nandini Festival, to be held in Sasihitlu from March 20, is an example of this.

The first river festival was held on January 12, 13, 2019 in Mangaluru on experimental basis and was a tremendous success.

The river festival had water sports, river cruises, floating jetties along the river, food stalls, exhibitions and cultural events depicting the district’s art and culture. More than 25,000 people attended the event.

Seeing the success of the festival the District Tourism Development Committee had requested a Rs 1 crore grant from the State’s Tourism Department in August that year.

But the request received no additional response from the Tourism Department.

Apart from the river festival, a proposal to build floating jetties at many places on the Phalguni and Netravati rivers at a cost of Rs 26 crores also did not receive any response from the government.

The surfing festival at Sasihitlu too has not been held for the past three years.

Tourism Minister CP Yogeshwar has now shown interest in reviving these festivals and has reportedly initiated efforts for beach-focused development of tourism in Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts.