A troupe from Arunachal Pradesh at the beach festival last year. Picture by Eastern Projections

Jan. 12: The Brahmaputra beach festival, the city’s most popular Magh Bihu event on the silvery sands of the Brahmaputra, will not be held this year for lack of government patronage and private sponsorship.

Sources said the Assam Boat Racing and Rowing Association, which had been organising the event for the past eight years, received a major setback after the departure of A.K. Absar Hazarika as deputy commissioner of Kamrup metro district last year.

“The festival was the brainchild of Hazarika. As deputy commissioner he had extended all support and other logistic help, including garnering funds, to popularise the event. The popularity of the festival had reached such a level that Union tourism minister Renuka Choudhury had once declared to include the event in the tourism calendar,” a source said.

One of the objectives of the festival was to propagate and popularise traditional sport of Assam. An office bearer of the association said it is very difficult to convince private sponsors and garner funds to hold a festival on the beaches of the Brahmaputra. “The tourism potential of the Brahmaputra beach has not yet been tapped,” he said. “But in the past, the festival could be organised only because of full support from the administration and the tourism department. This time, the support is sadly missing.”

Hazarika, who is now joint secretary in the home department, refuted the allegation that lack of government patronage has led to cancellation of the beach festival.

“In fact, the decision to cancel the festival was taken about a few months ago when adequate sandy riverbed was not found at the Kamakhya end of the Brahmaputra. We need at least three to four months preparation and planning to organise the festival. The festival could have been organised at the Raj Bhavan side of the river which is a very expensive affair,” Hazarika said.

He, however, admitted that private sponsorship was always a problem for organising events here.

The cancellation of the festival has generated sharp reactions from Guwahatians for whom the event has turned into an annual ritual.

“It is unfortunate that the government cannot even sustain an event on the majestic sands of the Brahmaputra when it is talking of attracting investments in the tourism sector,” Sunil Baruah, a resident of Uzan Bazar, said.

The festival was designed in such a way so as to give Guwahatians a taste of both adventure and fun during the Magh Bihu season. Every year the festival began on the day of uruka of Magh Bihu and continued for three to four days.