HYDERABAD: The All India Industrial Exhibition (AIIE), popularly as Numaish among Hyderabad citizens held at the sprawling Hyderabad's Nampally Exhibition Grounds, has been suspended indefinitely amidst the spread of the Omicron variant and the sharp increase in COVID-19 cases in Telangana especially in Greater Hyderabad limits.
AIIE General Secretary Aditya Margam told The New Indian Express that as of now Numaish has been shut down indefinitely until further orders from the State Government. The 45-day annual exhibition was inaugurated on January 1 by Governor Tamilsai Soundararajan. However, a day after the exhibition was opened to the visitors, it was temporarily suspended till January 10 amid increasing cases.
Aditiya Margam said that if the situation improves and government gives green signal, it will be opened again within a span of 48 hours. The Society will refund the stall rents that have been paid to them, the stall owners who came from various parts of the country and who wanted to leave to their respective places, money will be refunded, he added.
He said that they have received a memo from the Hyderabad Police Commissioner on Thursday, ordering a complete shutdown of the exhibition. The Society made efforts to get permission to run the exhibition at least during the day, the government was not convinced that this can be a safe proposition.
"After all the efforts went in vain and had decide to shut down the exhibition. The Society and stall owners are likely to incur losses," he said. In 2021, the Numaish had been cancelled due to the COVID pandemic.
The latest edition was the second time in its history that it could not be held. The organisers had allotted 1,600 stalls to traders and various business organisations from different parts of the country, Kashmir to Kanyakumari to sell their products at the trade fair.