India hopes Mahakumbh will bring in investors, but economists are sceptical | Business and Economy

Prayagraj, India – Arvind Agrawal has been running a business supplying stationery items across India for four decades in Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh state.

The city is currently hosting the Mahakumbh, often simply called the Kumbh, the world’s largest religious gathering of Hindus.

His mobile phone comes alive every few minutes with callers asking for the prices of key rings, calendars and diaries, all depicting an element of the Mahakumbh, a smart gimmick that has sent sales skyrocketing.

“I have hardly slept for more than four to five hours during the night over the past three months due to the massive demand for our items. The shop is kept open for longer than the normal schedule to dispatch the orders,” Agrawal tells Al Jazeera.

The extra demand is going to boost his annual revenues of about $570,000 to more than $660,000, he says.

Mahakumbh is held every 12 years in India in four sacred locations – Prayagraj, Haridwar, Nashik and Ujjain – on rotation depending upon the alignment of planets with the stars. Hindus believe that the festival is an opportunity for them to wash their sins away and seek spiritual liberation.

According to mythological beliefs, the festival is organised to celebrate the split of the elixir of immortality – the amrit – which fell on different places in India while the gods were protecting it from demons.

The event that began on the bank of the Sangam – the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati Rivers – in Prayagraj on January 13 will end on February 26 and is expected to draw millions of Hindu devotees and saints.

The festival is being held on 10,000 acres (4,046 hectares) where makeshift tents have been constructed to accommodate monks and devotees.

Massive business opportunity

Apart from its spiritual importance, Mahakumbh is also a massive business opportunity for the city’s entrepreneurs, the government says. More than 400 million people are likely to visit the city during the 45-day festival to take a bath in the Ganges and perform prayers.

The numbers being bandied about are big.

Mahendra Goyal, the president of the Uttar Pradesh Chapter of the Confederation of All India Traders, says local businesses will earn close to $3bn. State Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath estimates the festival is expected to generate revenue of more than $2 trillion for the country based on the calculation of 5,000 rupees ($58) being spent by each of the 400 million people expected to attend the event.

The state has hired social media influencers to promote the event and has also put up hoardings at airports around the country.

“Luxury cottages have been constructed, and the tour packages have been made for devotees coming to visit the Kumbh,” said Mukesh Kumar Meshram, principal secretary of the state Department of Tourism.

Some entrepreneurs are definitely benefitting from the burst of tourists. Ashish Mittal, 48, who sells paper cups and plates among other disposable items, told Al Jazeera that his business has witnessed massive growth over the past few days on the back of demand from the many community kitchens that have been set up to feed the devotees every day.

“Disposables are in huge demand. We usually do a turnover of 40 million rupees [$462,086] every financial year, but we are expecting additional sales of 15 million rupees [$173,282] due to the Mahakumbh,” Mittal told Al Jazeera.

Similarly, Vritti iMedia, a company that sells advertisement space on LED screens on moving vans, has snapped up multiple clients for the duration of the Mahakumbh.

“Our 25 display vans are moving across the festival area catching millions of eyeballs. We are expecting to generate four to five times more revenue than the previous Kumbhs because of its massive scale,” says Rajesh Radhakrishnan, co-founder of the company.

The state government has pumped 70 billion rupees ($808.5m) into developing infrastructure, including water and waste management, and fixing roads and highways. The federal government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has chipped in close to $250m.

Senior state government officials tell Al Jazeera that the investment is also an effort to show the improved infrastructure to draw investors.

“The massive arrangements like building up 150,000 tents, building state highways, improving the rail and air connectivity is meant to give a clear signal to the investors that the government is not only capable of organising such a mega event but can also create livelihood for several thousands of people,” KV Raju, economic adviser to the state chief minister, tells Al Jazeera.

Some economists, however, are sceptical of the government’s claim of generating $2 trillion from the event.

“Most of the devotees who visit the Kumbh travel in groups and belong to the lower strata of the society and don’t even have $58 to spend on themselves,” said Sunil Kumar Sinha, an economics professor who was previously the principal economist at India Ratings, a Fitch unit.

The government has to spend massively on their accommodation, safety and food for 45 days and that could outstrip the investment claimed publicly by the government, Sinha said.

“The real beneficiaries are only those related to tourism and hospitality. Even in Ayodhya, where the grand Ram Temple was consecrated last year, those industries centred around tourism got a chunk of the business, but no investments were made in other sectors. Events like the Mahakumbh are simply focused on showcasing the good governance of the government and nothing beyond that,” he added.

Despite all the arrangements, problems persist and some devotees have complained of inadequate shelters for them in the fairground.

“We are forced to sleep under the open sky in the chilling cold with blankets that we had brought from our houses. There are no arrangements for accommodation and food. We have brought some dry food items as eating out is very costly here,” says Sunita Roy, 45, a homemaker who came with a group to attend the Mahakumbh from Indore in Madhya Pradesh.

Sayantan Mukherjee, a 25-year-old software engineer from Kolkata, said his main problem was the unhygienic toilets at the fairgrounds.

“The government has made good arrangements in terms of crowd and traffic management, but the major problem is the uncleaned makeshift toilets … They are completely dirty and filled with human waste. It is impossible to even enter and stand there for a second, but they are the only option,” he said.

Another complaint is soaring ticket prices.

Airfare to Prayagraj from cities like New Delhi and Kolkata is anywhere from 20,000 to 35,000 rupees ($230 to $405), many times the standard fare of under 7,000 rupees ($81).

Debapratim Paul, 25, a stock market trader in Kolkata, told Al Jazeera that he ended up taking a flight to Prayagraj to experience the Mahakumbh as train tickets were sold out. He paid “too steep a price” of 10,000 rupees ($116) as there was no alternative. “The government should cap the airfares during such events to help more devotees to visit the holy city,” he says.