Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Na­tion­al Flour Mills Lim­it­ed (NFM) has be­come the lat­est ma­jor­i­ty State-owned com­pa­ny to with­draw its spon­sor­ship from this year’s Di­vali Na­gar.

NFM com­mu­ni­cat­ed its de­ci­sion in a let­ter sent by its chief com­mer­cial of­fi­cer, Shya­mal Chan­dra­daths­ingh, to Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) chair­man Su­ru­jdeo Man­ga­roo.

In the cor­re­spon­dence, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Chan­dra­daths­ingh did not ex­plain why the com­pa­ny would not par­tic­i­pate in this year’s event.

“De­spite our ab­sence, we wish the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture all the best for a suc­cess­ful event this year,” he said.

NFM’s de­ci­sion comes days af­ter First Cit­i­zens Bank (FCB) and bmo­bile al­so with­drew their spon­sor­ships.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Wednes­day, af­ter FCB with­drew fol­low­ing 18 con­sec­u­tive years of sup­port, Man­ga­roo said the event would pro­ceed as planned.

“The Na­gar is go­ing to con­tin­ue; we have every sin­gle thing in place, the start date, the fin­ish date,” he said.

He said this year marked the 40th an­niver­sary of Di­vali Na­gar, re­gard­ed as the largest Di­vali fes­ti­val out­side In­dia.

De­spite the spon­sor­ship set­backs, Man­ga­roo said the NCIC would not cut cor­ners or in­tro­duce an en­trance fee.

He said the or­gan­i­sa­tion re­lies on in­come from rent­ing fa­cil­i­ties for an In­di­an Ex­po and a car wash to help off­set util­i­ty bills, main­te­nance and se­cu­ri­ty costs at the site, which op­er­ates through­out the year.

“The area runs 365 days a year and the an­nu­al elec­tric­i­ty bill cross­es $250,000. We have ground staff, of­fice staff and 24-hour se­cu­ri­ty,” he said.

Man­ga­roo said the cost of stag­ing Di­vali Na­gar was sub­stan­tial, with po­lice ser­vices cost­ing close to $250,000 and pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty ex­ceed­ing $300,000.

“We have to pay for jan­i­to­r­i­al ser­vices, we pay artistes, we have to pay for sound sys­tems, light­ing, young artistes are giv­en a stipend,” he said.

He said the NCIC had been en­gag­ing mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, some of whom had pledged sup­port fol­low­ing news of the State’s with­draw­al of spon­sor­ship.

Man­ga­roo said about five to sev­en cor­po­rate spaces re­mained avail­able, but he was con­fi­dent the event would con­tin­ue to grow de­spite the fi­nan­cial chal­lenges.

“I can as­sure the pub­lic that the Di­vali Na­gar will con­tin­ue; it is get­ting big­ger,” he said.

“We will sur­vive!”