PORVORIM: Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar on Thursday expressed satisfaction on the completion of work for the BRICS summit and claimed that everything is ready as planned.
Addressing the media, the Chief Minister said, “The challenges taken up by the Goa government in the last one month have been transformed into opportunities. Despite heavy rainfall the works of road widening, beautification, setting up of new transformers, moving of old transformers has been carried out smoothly,” Parsekar said.
He said that heads of countries, that combined have 42 percent of the world’s population, are coming to Goa for the first time, and this will give Goa a wide reach especially due to the State’s culture, heritage, cuisine and hospitality.
“Most importantly all the
agreements and declarations made will be termed as Goa Declaration or Declaration of Goa,” he said.
He said that around Rs 70-75 crore has been spent on the event, which had been sanctioned by the Central government and that three hotels – The Leela, Taj Exotica and Park Hyatt – have been booked for VIPs in South Goa. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi will arrive in the State on Friday ahead of the BRICS Summit starting on Saturday.
Parsekar also said that while Modi and Russian President Vladmir Putin will stay at Taj Exotica, the heads of the other three nations will be put up at either Park Hyatt or The Leela.
During a presentation, secretary Manoj Sahoo said that an event of such magnitude requires preparations for visiting VVIPs of immense detail and have a set protocol.
“Recently, at G20 summit held in Chinese city of Hangzhow the whole city was shut down with residents being asked to evacuate the city completely for the duration of the summit. Fortunately this is not the requirement in Goa,” the secretary said. However, he said that for Goa’s and India’s prestige patience from the people is required.
