Team Herald
MARGAO: The curtains have fallen on the four-day Defence Expo in Quitol, which saw a footfall of over 2.10 lakh Indians and foreigners. The last day had a turnout of over 1 lakh people.
The delegates and visitors included businessman Anil Ambani, Minister of State for Defence Rao Inderjit Singh, Central Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Army Chief Dalbir Singh Suhag, besides several others from international brands in defence products and services.
More than 7,000 school and college students from across Goa attended the DefExpo on Thursday, as did the villagers. The Expo was initially open only for school students, but was later extended to college students.
“Until 10.30 am, I saw only 20 percent of the parking area filled, but as I left, almost the entire area was filled with people and cars,” said a visitor on the final day.
Several persons also clicked many photos and uploaded the same on social media sites.
M D Singh, the Director of Defence Expo Organisations, stated that over 1.20 lakh people took advantage of the free entry to the site on the final day.
“There were more than 50,000 attendees on Day 1, over 18,000 on Day 2, over 25,000 on Day 3 and over a lakh on the final day,” said Singh, adding, “In 15 to 20 days, we will remove our setup, clean the area and exit the land.”
A motorcycle pilot from Margao told Herald that during the four-day Expo, he had been transporting attendees twice a day and had earned over Rs 1,000 each day.
Taxi owners have stated that they were booked for all four days either by the hotels where they waited or by attendees at the site. Hotels owners from Utorda to Canacona said they received bookings from travel agencies despite hiking the charges.
