The year’s second Bidhannagar Mela (Utsav) started on Tuesday. With less than 500 stalls, 60 kiosks and 88 dalas, the fair will continue till January 6. The earlier edition had taken place from February 20 to March 12 and had 620 stalls.

The fair is usually held in December and covers the year-end week. But the Book Fair was brought forward in 2024 — to a January 18 start — to avoid a clash with the Board examinations which happened much earlier as a domino effect of the Lok Sabha polls starting in April. This year, the Book Fair is back to its end-January start (January 28), allowing enough time for Bidhannagar Mela (Utsav) to be held before it.

This year, the responsibility of both the booking and the construction of the stalls has been handed to a contractor on the basis of a tender bid. “We have participation from vendors from foreign countries like Ghana, Egypt, Afghanistan and Turkey. There are about 30 vendors from Kashmir, so we have created a zone for them. Food stalls that will cook on the spot are in a zone at the right side. Others are scattered in the main ground,” said an official working for the contractor. There will be play areas on both sides of the main ground, with a frisbee ride being touted as a novelty.

Cross-border worry

About 25-30 stalls have yet to be booked. The reason is largely the lack of participation of Bangladeshi vendors who are a regular presence at the fair, mostly with their stock of jamdani saris. “There were bookings from seven or eight vendors from Bangladesh. Some had even paid the booking fee. But given the turmoil in their country and the reaction here, we told them that if they are disrespected in any way we cannot take responsibility for that,” said the source. The contractors are planning to send a refund but are in a quandary as they lack details about some of the vendors.

This is the first time that booking of stalls is being done by an external agency, RS Enterprise, ever since the fair was taken over by the civic authorities from an NGO which organised it in the Left Front regime.

According to sources, last year there was discontent when a decision by Rajesh Chirimar, who used to be the fair committee secretary, was overruled by mayor and committee president Krishna Chakraborty. Chrimar reportedly had allowed a hawker to sit outside the gate on the pavement against payment in the name of the Corporation. Chirimar stayed away from the inauguration this year. Two other notable absentees were urban development minister and Calcutta mayor Firhad Hakim and Corporation chairperson Sabyasachi Dutta. Chirimar’s colleague in the mayoral council, Tulsi Sinha Roy, has taken over as fair committee secretary.

“This year, we are not sure what the responsibility of the councillors is though BMC is organising the fair. Nor do we know who will take responsibility — the BMC or the private agency — if anything untoward happens, be it a stampede or a fire or a stall cave-in. It was a change in policy to allot booking rights to an outside agency but we were not consulted beforehand. There was no Board meeting before the tender notice came out. A couple of councillors’ meetings were held on the fair to inform us of the development only after the work order was issued. We did not even know in advance about the dates of the fair being finalised and the ground being booked. The mayor prefers to keep all cards close to her chest,” a councillor said, requesting anonymity. Mayor Chakraborty refused to answer any question on the fair when approached by The Telegraph Salt Lake.

The opening on Tuesday was attended by four ministers — local MLA and fire and emergency services minister Sujit Bose, agriculture and parliamentary affairs minister Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, education minister Bratya Basu and power, housing, sports and youth affairs minister Aroop Biswas — and the Assembly chief whip Nirmal Ghosh, other than councillors and civic body officials.

“Ebar pujor boro programme hoy ni… Eto poshrao bosheni. (There were no programmes this puja, nor were so many commodities put on display),” said Chakraborty in her speech, referring to the apathy to celebrate in the context of the agitation seeking justice for the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital victim. “All big artistes are coming,” she said.

It was later learnt that the rock band Fossils would perform at the closing ceremony on January 6. Minister Indranil Sen will perform on January 4. Cultural programmes will take place daily, with the participation of local artistes from 5pm to 7.30pm.

Minister Biswas said the state government was criticised for staying busy with mela ar khela (fair and games). “But we need to remind them that many artisans and street food sellers look forward to events like Bidhannagar Mela for their livelihood,” he said.

The fair is open from 3pm to 9pm. Entry is free.