960 delegates for Metropolis meet in Hyderabad HYDERABAD: As Telangana government is gearing up to showcase Hyderabad as the most happening city and boost its brand image during the XI Metropolis World Congress 2014, the first international conference to be held here after the formation of the new state, however, registration of delegates was not so encouraging.
With less than three weeks left for the prestigious conference, only 960 delegates from different cities have registered so far as against the expected 3,000. Of them about 709 hail from Indian cities including 483 from Telangana (50 percent), 26 from Andhra Pradesh and remaining delegates hails from 47 countries.
The four-day conference, to be held from October 7-10, is expected to be attended by over 3,000 delegates from over 100 international countries and elected and public officials from about 100 Indian Tier-I and Tier-II cities. So far, only 960 participants have registered.
To attract more number of delegates, the state government had even issued an order waiving the registration fee, which was initially pegged at over $200 for each foreign delegate.
Created in 1985, Metropolis Association is represented by more than 140 cities from across the world and operates as an international forum for exploring issues and concerns common to all metropolitan regions.
The 10th metropolitan world congress was held in 2011 at Porte Alegre, Brazil. The earlier editions were held in Sydney, Berlin, Seoul Barcelona, Tokyo, Montreal, Melbourne and Mexico City. It is held once in three years.
The GHMC had earmarked `11.5 crore for hosting the event. An additional `3.5 crore could be incurred on branding exercise and beautification of the city. GHMC had identified nine tourist attractions in the city for the delegates.
News Posted: 16 September, 2014
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