As per reports from the Udaipur administration, the Central Government has given its go ahead to hold the G20 Summit Sherpa Meet at Udaipur this year. This is first time that a G20 Summit Sherpa meeting is being organized in India. The larger scale G20 Summit meeting is scheduled to be held at Bali, Indonesia, on 14-15 November. The G20 Summit will be under the Presidency of India after the November 2022 Summit in Indonesia. In all there will 190 meetings at different levels within India. Three of these will be the Sherpa (Agenda) meetings, the first being held in Udaipur. India’s Presidency for 2022-2023 will end with the 2023 Summit Meeting that is scheduled to be held at Jammu & Kashmir.

What is G20 Sherpa Meeting

The Sherpa Meeting of the G20 Summit is a meeting of the government representatives (or head of state). This meeting is a preliminary meeting before the main G20 Summit, where only the head of states meet and the final decisions are taken. The Sherpa meet is a preliminary discussion of influential representatives of the governments of member countries where possible agreements are laid out, but no final decisions are taken. This meeting is a precursor to the main G20 Summit, to ensure that the time and resources required at the time of negotiations of the larger heads of state at the final summit is minimized. Amitabh Kant, former NITI Aayog CEO, will be the Sherpa from India.

Arrangements at Udaipur

A week ago, 5 senior officers from the Central Government had visited Udaipur in order to assess the infrastructure and security mechanism at Udaipur for a probable G20 Sherpa Summit meeting. The Central Government has given the go ahead for the meeting to be held at Udaipur, once the reports were submitted and assessed.

Accordingly the state Government of Rajasthan has been instructed to make provisions for the security and logistics for the visiting dignitaries.  The state Home department, subsequently, has instructed the Collector of Udaipur, Tarachand Meena to take immediate steps to make fool proof and secure arrangements for the visiting dignitaries from 20 nations, including India. All arrangement beginning from the arrangements of the final boarding and lodging destinations, meeting destinations, tour planning through event management companies, arrival at the airport, escorts across the city and various tourist places, luxury vehicles, etc. will be etched out in detail by the district administration in consultation with security agencies, private operators and the state government.

Possible tours and meeting venue

The visiting dignitaries will also be touring tourist spots around Udaipur and international grade security arrangements need to be ensured. It is expected that the Durbar Hall in the City Palace will host the G20 Summit Sherpa meeting.

Value addition to Udaipur

The Congress Chintan Shivir in Udaipur earlier this year was the first major event to take place in Udaipur. During the Congress meet, security and logistics arrangement were at an all-time high and so was the beautification of the city, especially the roads. It is expected that this time the arrangements need to be of international levels, hence the beautification will be at another level, giving the much needed dressing up to the city of lakes, which will already be glowing with the Monsoon rains.