Festival to showcase Kolkata's street food to be held on February 22
Kolkata: A unique festival to showcase Kolkata's street food will be held on February 22. The venue of the festival will be from Lyon's range to The Bengal Chamber.
The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has taken an initiative to monitor the cooking medium used to prepare street food. It has also taken an initiative to provide gas oven to street food vendors, to replace the traditional ones in a bid to bring down the pollution level.
New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) has taken up a move to improve the quality of food and ambience of street food stalls in Sector V. In a bid to sanitise the street food vendors, The Bengal Chamber has organised four workshops.
Subhodip Ghosh, director general, The Bengal Chamber, stated: "The idea was to strengthen and encourage food tourism, cultural tourism and livelihood development for the overall welfare of the very strong force of street vendors, who have been a great source of variety and flavour for all office-goers in this busy stretch since decades. Effort is also on to further the cause of a clean and green Kolkata and these workshops will help the street vendors greatly."
Dalhousie or BBD Bag is the business hub of Kolkata and is known as 'apish para' in common parlance.
A senior KMC official said thousands of people who come to the city from districts everyday take food from the roadside stalls and so, the quality of the cooking medium becomes very important.
Arindam Sil, chairman of the Media, Music and Films committee, said: "Food is also synonymous with culture of a region and Dalhousie area has not only been associated with our heritage but a thriving food culture exists as well that has been a lifeline for many office-goers and tourists. So, it was an initiative that we designed and conceptualised so that this beautiful tradition of blending heritage and food remain and we lend a helping hand to support our street vendors who have been keeping this place gastronomically alive."
