Lighthouse festival in Visakhapatnam on January 9-10

The Union Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways will organise the Lighthouse Festival at Visakhapatnam on January 9 and 10

The two-day event will feature performances by local artists, music and dance programmes, food stalls, sand art, beach activities, and interactive sessions with historians and archaeologists.

The Lighthouse Festival is a unique initiative launched by the Ministry with the objective of developing India’s historic lighthouses into vibrant tourism destinations. The festival aims to bring India’s rich maritime heritage closer to the public through a celebratory atmosphere.

The event gives prominence to music, local cuisine, cultural performances, and discussions on history, offering visitors a holistic cultural experience. It seeks to blend heritage, tourism, and community participation while highlighting the significance of lighthouses along India’s vast coastline.

The festival was first successfully organised in 2023 at Fort Aguada, Goa. Subsequently, in 2024, it was expanded to other coastal locations such as Puri in Odisha, where local culture and traditions were widely showcased. Attracting investments and promoting economic development in coastal regions, which is also one of the key objectives of the initiative.

A major focus of the Lighthouse Festival is the development of lighthouses through Public–Private Partnerships (PPP), while presenting the cultural richness of India’s coastal regions to the world. In line with the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the initiative aims to transform 75 historic lighthouses across the country into tourism hubs, thereby strengthening local economies and preserving India’s maritime heritage, said officials on Wednesday.