Poush Parban Fair concludes in Tripura

Lankamura (Tripura) [India], January 18 : The three-day Poush Parban fair, a state government initiative, concluded in Lankamura village of West Tripura District on Sunday. The fair, held for the first time, aims to revive the traditional arts, crafts and cuisine of the state, besides promoting tourism.
"The Sanskar Bharti, an organisation that works for the promotion of Indian art and culture has worked jointly with the Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre (EZCC) and Information and Cultural Affairs (ICA), department of the government of Tripura to organise this festival for the first time with an aim to revive the lost traditional arts and crafts beside using the platform to launch new products to assess the marketing capability," said Amir Chand, organiser of the event and National Secretary of Sanskar Bharti.
"It will boost tourism immensely as people not just from Tripura, but also other parts of the country are coming as the Airport is in the vicinity of the village," added Chand.
Apart from this, the fair also aims to empower rural women.
Sweets, puddings and a variety of food items mostly made of Atap (uncooked rice), coconut, banana, and molasses of the date-palm were exhibited at the fair.
"No oil has been used to make these dishes. Traditional food is better than what we usually eat. No wonder our grandparents were so healthy," said Boibhobhi Chakraborty, a tourist who visited the fair.
The stalls with traditional food attracted a large number of customers.
The village, where walls of almost every house were beautifully painted with traditional patterns, itself was a point of attraction.
The participants expressed happiness as they made reasonable profits during the fair.
Local MLA Dr. Dilip Das, who was there on concluding day of the fair, said "We want to make these villagers self-reliant, and in future, we plan to extend the area covered and make it a tourist hub."