Annual food festival 'Ahare Bangla' starts from Dec 8

Kolkata: Representatives from four foreign countries will be participating in "Ahare Bangla" this year, which starts from December 8 at New Town Mela Ground.

Representatives from China, Japan, Russia and Nepal will be present at the food festival to give the residents of city of joy a taste of their cuisine.

B P Gopalika, Principal Secretary of the Animal Resource Development department, held a press conference in this connection at Nabanna on Thursday and said this year's "Ahare Bangla" is going to start from December 8 and continue till December 11. People can visit the festival on all the days between 12 noon to 9 pm. The inauguration of the festival will be held on December 7 evening. There will be enough space in the mela ground where an arrangement for more than 2000 people will be made.

"Ahare Bangla" is the brainchild of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and it has turn out to be the biggest food festival in the country. She had inspired all the senior officials of the concerned departments to take necessary steps to make the festival more popular as it was not only for the amusement of the people but also a platform to do good business. It may be recalled that in 2016 there was a staggering footfall of 1.5 lakh people in just five days at the annual food festival, while it was around 65,000 in 2015. Senior officers expect the footfall to go up this time.