Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call to the people to hoist the national flag in connection with Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav to mark 75 years of India’s Independence from the British rule has generated lot of enthusiasm but many are disappointed when they couldn’t find the flags in the market.
Normally, the national flags are ubiquitous in the open market a few days before the Independence Day and the Republic Day. This year happens to be the platinum jubilee of India’s Independence and the Union government has been stressing on observation of the birth and death anniversaries of our freedom fighters.
The 146th birth anniversary of Pingali Venkayya, freedom fighter and designer of the national flag, who hailed from a village near Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh, was celebrated on August 2. Many thought they could hoist the flag atop their roofs from that day. The flags are no where to be seen, be it at the commercial shops, or the innumerable khadi outlets in the city.
A few flags, attached to a small stick, were seen tied to the railing outside the Ponduru Khadi Bhandar, opposite the Sri Anjaneya Swamy temple, near the Poorna Market, on Thursday. When contacted, a sales person at the showroom said: “We have placed orders for supply of flags two months ago but we haven’t received them so far. We don’t know when we will get them.”
“We do not have stocks and we place orders from the khadi societies, located in the rural areas, when we get orders from the customers,” said a representative of Khadi India showroom located in same area.
Prakash Book Stores, a small shop on the Main Road, near Kurupam Market, where the tricolour is available all round the year, did not see any buyers, perhaps, due to lack of publicity on availability of flags at that store. “This year we expected a surge in sales much earlier in view of the Prime Minister’s call to hoist the flag atop houses,” says its proprietor Suresh. “There seems to be confusion on the dates regarding hoisting of the flag. Initially it was thought they should be hoisted from August 2 but later it was announced that the hoisting would be done from August 13.
“We have already five lakh flags of the six lakh required in Visakhapatnam district. There are 5.56 lakh household in Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC) limits. Of the one lakh pending flags, about 50,000 would be required for Anandapuram and Bheemunipatnam under the GVMC limits, and an additional 50,000 flags would be required for the rural areas of the district, which come under the purview of the Zilla Parishad CEO,” UCD Project Director K.V. Papi Naidu told The Hindu on Thursday.
“The five lakh flags have already been distributed to the ward secretariats and the pending flags are expected to be received in a day or two. We are confident that they would be distributed to all the households by August 12,” he said.
