Can a money starved state , which is struggling even to pay salaries to the employees, spend Rs 1.6 crore for celebrating a national festival?
This happened in the case of Andhra Pradesh.
Andhra Pradesh government celebrated last Independence day at Visakhapatnam. As the state had no capital city (Hyderabad is the joint capital and there is no bar in celebrating the festival there), the state government chose to celebrate the Independence Day in different regions to give an impression that government would give equal treatment to all regions. First Independence day after the bifurcation of the state was celebrated at Kurnool in 2014. In 2015 Vizag was the venue for the second Independence day celebrations. The cost of the vizag celebration, which lasted for three hours, was Rs 1,66,92,217 ( Rupees one crore sixty six lakh ninety two thousand and seventeen only). The money was spent on making arrangements at RK beach road and for hiring Viswapriya Function hall etc. This is in addition to the expenditure the officials incurred for their flight charges and stay at Vizag city. This amount was spent from the budgets of concerned departments.