Andaman's ITF carnival kicks off from Jan 8

Port Blair, Jan 07: Andaman and Nicobar Tourism Department is allset to organise the much awaited mega carnival, Island Tourism Festival(ITF), from Monday.

Bollywood artists, famous dancers, singers, poets from acrossIndia have been invited to perform during the festival, to begin fromeighth January 2007, territory's tourism department S K P Sodi said.

Lt. Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands Lt General (Retd) Bhopinder Singh would inaugurate the mega event, Ms Sodi said.

Earlier, the 13 day long event was usually organised in December.

''In 2004 we were not able to organise the ITF because of tsunami disaster but from 2005 we are back again,'' Ms Sodi added.

Nearly 300 cultural and folk dance artists all over the countrywould perform in ITF. The administration had already tied up with theNorth, South, West and East Zone Cultural centres, sources said.

Events like, baby show, dog show, flower show and competitions forschool students would also be organised here, which would be the mainattraction of ITF.

The estimated budget of the festival is Rs 50 lakhs, official sources said.

The festival is being organised in the island to attract more andmore tourists every year, This year about 1,20,000 tourists havealready visited the islands, Andaman's Tourism Department PRO RanaMathew said.

Besides the sylvan beaches and lush green islands, lone activevolcano, Bareen, Mud Volcano of Baratang, turtle nesting, cellular jailare some of the other important attractions of these virgin islands.

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