Shas­tri Boodan

Cul­tur­al groups in Fe­lic­i­ty have wel­comed bmo­bile’s de­ci­sion to redi­rect fund­ing to com­mu­ni­ty Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions, as the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) faces a $500,000 spon­sor­ship short­fall for this year’s Di­vali Na­gar.

Sun­dar Jookoo, Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion coun­cil­lor for Fe­lic­i­ty and head of the First Fe­lic­i­ty Ram­leela and Cul­tur­al Group, said bmo­bile ap­proached his or­gan­i­sa­tion two weeks ago to dis­cuss fund­ing for the com­mu­ni­ty’s Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions.

Jookoo said he had been li­ais­ing with oth­er cul­tur­al groups in Fe­lic­i­ty to co­or­di­nate ac­tiv­i­ties that would cul­mi­nate in a grand cel­e­bra­tion.

“We wel­come the move by bmo­bile to pump monies in­to cel­e­bra­tions across the coun­try. Cel­e­bra­tions in Fe­lic­i­ty cost well over $100,000 last year. We have a lot of for­eign and lo­cal vis­i­tors com­ing in­to the com­mu­ni­ty on Di­vali day, and they look for­ward to a grand cel­e­bra­tion. The funds would go well to­wards an­chor­ing the do­mes­tic tourism po­ten­tial of the com­mu­ni­ty, which has been over­looked for years,” Jookoo said.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath told Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day that bmo­bile’s de­ci­sion to with­draw its sup­port from this year’s Di­vali Na­gar was in­tend­ed to bring Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions di­rect­ly in­to com­mu­ni­ties, rather than spend mon­ey on elab­o­rate pro­mo­tion­al booths at the an­nu­al event.

Padarath said Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT), which op­er­ates bmo­bile, was re­align­ing its cor­po­rate so­cial re­spon­si­bil­i­ty pro­gramme to fo­cus on ini­tia­tives that would ben­e­fit more cit­i­zens.

He said the com­pa­ny want­ed to move away from spend­ing on large booths to dis­trib­ute pam­phlets and pro­mo­tion­al ma­te­r­i­al. Com­mu­ni­ty-based cel­e­bra­tions, he said, would al­low it to reach more peo­ple and de­liv­er greater val­ue for its spend­ing.

Mean­while, the NCIC is seek­ing about $1 mil­lion in gov­ern­ment spon­sor­ship to help stage this year’s Di­vali Na­gar af­ter los­ing about $500,000 in sup­port from bmo­bile, Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um, the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board and Caribbean Air­lines.

NCIC pres­i­dent Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo said the or­gan­i­sa­tion hoped to se­cure gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance, al­though he ac­knowl­edged it might re­ceive on­ly a quar­ter of the amount re­quest­ed.

He said the NCIC re­ceived $500,000 in May to help cov­er the cost of the 2025 cel­e­bra­tions.

Man­ga­roo said the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s fundrais­ing plans would not in­clude charg­ing pa­trons to en­ter the Na­gar.

“The Na­gar has al­ways been free to the hun­dreds of thou­sands who have vis­it­ed the cel­e­bra­tions an­nu­al­ly, and that would not change,” he said.

Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin did not re­spond to ques­tions sent by What­sApp or calls seek­ing com­ment.