April has traditionally been a month of festivity and holiday crowds in the hill country town of Nuwara Eliya.
The centre of activity is the Nuwara Eliya “Spring” Festival, which attracts thousands of entertainment-seekers and traders seeking to cash in on the crowd’s presence.
This year, however, the spring festival has been a disappointment, with officials blaming each other for the poor turnout of both visitors and business people.
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| The Central Province Governor giving away an award |
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| An open-roofed double-decker bus taking sightseers around the town |
The April Spring Festival goes back to pre-Independence days, to around 1873, when the British unofficially declared Nuwara Eliya their “home away from home”. With its cool climate and hill-country setting, it made the ideal getaway. Nuwara Eliya became known as “little England”. City folk would head there in droves for the April, August and December holidays.
After Independence, the Colombo set took over from the British in making Nuwara Eliya their favourite holiday destination, especially in the hot Easter season, around April.
Typically British pursuits, like polo, hunting and ballroom dancing, were continued by locals long after the British left Ceylon. One especially popular event was the horticultural exhibition, which was initiated in 1888.
The Spring Festival was reborn in 1978 as a government sponsored event, organised by the Nuwara Eliya-Maskeliya Development Foundation, with the Government Agent in charge. The festival ran from late March to the end of April. The Municipal Council later took over the reins as spring festival organiser.
The spring festival evolved into a lucrative commercial event, attracting thousands of visitors from the hills, Colombo and elsewhere. The festival was such a commercial success that a beer company once issued free beer to visitors to mark a special event.
However, a period of decline set in, and for years the festival was a lacklustre event, until a group of State organisations got together to give the festival a fresh lease of life. The Urban Development Authority and the Road Development Authority were involved.
This year’s spring festival, however, was declared a failure by many. Visitors saw empty trade stalls and complained of a lack proper toilet facilities around the Nuwara Eliya lake.
Speaking at the spring exhibition awards ceremony, Central Province Governor Tikiri Kobbekaduwa said hill country residents should be proud of Nuwara Eliya, which has been described as “the most charming” town in the hills. Mr. Kobbekaduwa also gave away the awards for the Wasantha flower exhibition, now in its 14th year.
Nuwara Eliya resident Indra Kumara de Silva received the prize for best garden, and the Grand Hotel won the award for the largest commercial sector garden. |
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