Visitors arrive in droves as Numaish throws open gates

Hyderabad: Hyderabad’s most awaited annual extravaganza, ‘Numaish,’ kicked off on Friday at the Exhibition Grounds in Nampally. A huge rush to visit the industrial exhibition on the first day was witnessed. The 84th edition of the All India Industrial Exhibition, popularly known as Numaish, was inaugurated by IT Minister and All India Industrial Exhibition Society (AIIES) president Duddilla Sridhar Babu, Minister Ponnam Prabhakar, Rajya Sabha MP Anil Kumar Yadav, and TPCC president Mahesh Kumar Goud.

Traditionally, the Numaish is inaugurated on January 1 every year. Due to national mourning in view of the demise of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the inauguration was postponed and conducted on Friday. This year, the organisers have hiked the entry fee to Rs 50 from Rs 40 per head.

‘Numaish’ was first started in 1938 with only 100 stalls at Public Gardens, and today it has attained the status of a national-level expo and is considered one of the biggest windows of the country to promote trade. In addition, the expo functions as a mode of educating people on developmental activities of the government.

AIIES vice president K Niranjan, secretary B Surender Reddy, joint secretary D Mohan, and other members were also present. Later, the Ministers and AIIES members went around the Numaish grounds in the train and looked at stalls set up at one of the world’s oldest annual consumer exhibitions. Numaish has been an annual event for more than eight decades that sees lakhs of people thronging to purchase clothes, food, accessories, and home essentials from stalls set up by traders from across the country. According to the Exhibition Society, as many as 1,500 stalls have been set up on the Numaish ground for the annual 46-day-long exhibition. Every day the exhibition will be open for visitors from 3:30 pm to 10:30 pm. They said free Wi-Fi will be made available across the grounds.

The stalls include a sale of different commercial and industrial products, clothes from various States, arts and crafts, handlooms, food stalls, adventure activities, fun games, and various cultural programmes.

Apart from facilitating business, the Industrial Exhibition also aids in the education of many downtrodden students, especially women. The AIIES was operating 20 educational institutions across the State and was imparting quality education to over 30,000 students annually. The society is providing direct and indirect employment to 10,000 people every year and playing a key role in enhancing Hyderabad’s brand image.