Ahd visit cost pegged around Rs 115 crore
Now it can be told. That US President Donald Trump and first lady Melanie are visiting Ahmedabad at the invitation of a public felicitation committee headed by city mayor Bijal Patel. Though the time she came to know of it herself still stays in the realm of conjecture.
The announcement which has invited social media reactions that oscillate between disbelief and despair has had tongues wagging ever since the official spokesperson of the External Affairs ministry alluded to the Donald Trump Public Felicitation Committee as the organisers of functions in which leaders of the opposition parties do not figure.
The delayed entry of the panel in the Ahmedabad part of the Trump visit and lack of details has led to speculation that it may be an afterthought to evade scrutiny of the huge expenditure being incurred on it. A local newspaper broadly calculated the expenditure incurred on the three hour Ahmedabad visit at around Rs 115 crores and then broke it down to suggest it meant Rs 64 lakhs for every minute spent or a lakh a second.
Be that as it may, the government is largely to blame for the lack of clarity as orders stream in from Delhi by the hour causing an immense amount of chopping and changing. A classic example is the main event in Ahmedabad itself. When preparations began in right earnest for the US President's Ahmedabad visit it was “Kem chho Trump”, the Gujarati counter to the 'Howdy Modi' even held at Houston, USA last year. Somewhere down the line as the countdown began,”kem chho”(how are you, in Gujarati) was found to be too regional and it was decided to name it “Namaste President Trump” to give the event a more national appeal-sort of Indian than Gujarati. Though questions emanating out of mayor Patel heading the organisers panel have raised more questions than answered the curious, the fact remains that nationwide publicity and invitations extended for the Ahmedabad event has created problems of it's own. One way airfare from Mumbai to Ahmedabad have crossed Rs 10,000 and are still rising while all luxury hotels are packed and reporting no-room. The downside of it is that those who had booked weeks in advance find their bookings cancelled and hotel accommodation rates reporting a 30 to 40 per cent jump.
Meanwhile with Trump himself raising expectations through his constant tweets - latest being a crore of people to greet him - the organisers are coming under increased pressure. the word is out that BJP leaders are being asked to report in how many more busloads they can get in. the overload that rising numbers may bring to bear on Ahmedabad city is apart from the already extended infrastructure under disruptive strain due to ongoing construction work of the Ahmedabad Metro and doubling of the SG highway. Additionally, a fair chunk of the city from the airport to the wider areas of the US President's route will ground to a complete halt for greater part of the day on February 24. Even the media has been told to gather at 7 am to be taken to the venue for a function which is expected to roll past noon.