By our Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI, Feb 7: The regiol SARAS Fair, which is going on in Srimanta Sankardevs Kalakhetra (SSK) from January 30 till and to continue till February 8, has been extended to February 16 in connection with the ongoing South Asian Games in the city.
State mission director of Assam State Rural Livelihood Mission Society (ASRLMS) Nitin Khade said today: “We have organized the SARAS Fair for the first time in the state, and the group of Tejaswini was also launched, which has got good response from the visitors who have ordered many clothes from it. The fair was scheduled from January 30 to February 8, but due to the ongoing SA Games in the city from Februay 5, we have extended the fair to get some more exposure and focus from the intertiol participants from seven countries. There are 154 stalls of Self Help Groups (SHG) and private farms from the 25 states of the country, who participated in the fair with their ethnic products. From the Northeast, except galand and Mizoram, all the states have participated in the fair with their ethnic food, clothes and orments.”
“We have gathered good response from the public. We have invested around Rs 40 lakh in the fair, and till yesterday, we have collected more than Rs 41.15 lakh from all the stalls in the fair. There are 25 stalls from the outside the Northeast. The state that made good profit from the fair are Gujarat, Harya, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Odisa, Jharkhand and others. We have also organized cultural programmes of various singers and musicians like hid Afrin, Priyanka Bharali, Deepak Sarma and organized various competitions among the children during these days for the entertainment,” said a member of organizing committee, Chandan Talukdar.
Lal Chand of Harya said: “We have come from an SHG of Harya with the products of Terra-Cota pots and others. We’ve received good response from the visitors. We have already sold products worth Rs 2 lakh these days.”
Gulzar Ahmed of Chenir SHG of Jammu and Kashmir said: “We have come here for the first time with our product ‘Kehwa’, a Kashmiri drink with Kesar, and have sold products worth Rs 40,000. We brought products worth Rs 1 lakh.”
Milan Soni of Sahayog Sakhi Mandal SHG of Gujarat said: “We have come here with scks, beverages, pickles and spices of Rs 47,000 and have earned a profit of around Rs 90,000 till date.”