HYDERABAD: It is estimated that on an average, 15,000 people visit the All-India Industrial Exhibition, popularly known as Numaish, on any given day. With such enormous crowds visiting the 23-acre trade extravaganza every day, ensuring a pleasant experience to the visitors coming from every nook and corner of the city is not an effortless task. Behind every enjoyable visit to the exhibition, lies the efforts of over 150 volunteers who are always on guard to maintain the decorum of the trade fair.
Working three shifts every day, the volunteers make sure that the exhibition is guarded every hour from heavily crowded evenings to deserted nightfalls. “Though most of the volunteers are active in the evening owing to heavy crowds, we do have some of them guarding the place from 8 am to 2 pm where we allow people to visit the exhibition in cars. Also, there are people patrolling from 2 pm to 10 pm to keep a check on any unlawful practices,” said K Yadgiri, a volunteer in-charge.
Maqsood, a volunteer residing in Old City, says, “Normally, you do not see a lot of people from Old City visiting malls or other exhibitions because they find them too intimidating. But most of them do visit Numaish.”
“Due to the heavy crowds, the place attracts a lot of chain-snatchers, pick-pockets and eve-teasers. We keep a check on them,” he added.
Applications for the posts of volunteer open up every November and the Exhibition Society receives as many as 700 applications every year. “We shortlist them based on certain criteria and get them trained by the city security wing for three days. They learn various things from controlling heavy crowds to diffusing a bomb,” says R Sukesh Reddy, convener, volunteer camp.
“In the last 75 years, there has not been a single child who was lost in the exhibition. In some instances, volunteers found out the address of these children and took them home themselves,” he said, further adding starting from this year, we will be issuing them certificates signed by senior police officials.