JOIN USThe fourth edition of the street food festival at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (JLN Stadium) will soon to hit the grounds, and the festival this year is going to be bigger and better.
More than 300 regional cuisines from 25 states will be a part of the festival and there is nothing in the street food genre that has been “left out”.
“We wanted to highlight the concerns and issues of street food vendors. So instead of holding a conference or a seminar, we thought of organising a food festival and through that, attract policy makers so that they give these vendors the required space for setting up their stalls,” Arbind Singh, national coordinator, National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI), tells Metrolife.
The festival, says Singh, has been taking place since the past nine years. Earlier, it was held at the Constitution Club of India, then at JLN Stadium and is now being implemented to be held in Goa.
Along with an extensive array of regional cuisines from across the country, the
festival will also include other informative events about street food and street food vendors, along with magic shows, performances by bands like Indian Ocean and meeting with celebrity chefs Sanjeev Kapoor and Kunal Kapur.
“The purpose of the festival is to bring street food vendors in the mainstream food scene so that they get their deserved space in the cities and respect by people,” adds Singh.
This year, the festival is organised by NASVI and Food Safety and Standards authority of India (FSSAI), which according to Singh is a “great achievement” for the member-based organisation (NASVI) and also “raises the bar of the festival”.
The organisation has around 6,52,000 members across India and these members work on the rights of these vendors, try to get zones for them.
“At the festival, we train vendors who are beginners or are not very skilled. We train them about how to take care of hygiene and sell in a way to attract more customers. When they receive good response from people, they get motivated to do better.
Most of these vendors go back with a changed mindset about street food and their livelihood through it,” says Singh adding that the festival also helps them learn skills of entrepreneurship and become role models for other vendors.
While hygiene is one of the main concerns why many are sceptical about street food, Singh says that all these vendors will arrive a day before the festival kicks off and will be trained for taking care of the same.
Additionally, every stall will be assigned one person each, who will be taking care of the cleanliness and hygienic conditions.
However, organising a festival in a makeshift place is one of the biggest challenges for organisers, reports Singh.
“In a makeshift place, everything from the setting up of the stalls to the stages for entertainment have to be done from the scratch. The festival is attended by people from all across country and serving them good and hygienic food is not easy.”
“But it's all worth the effort in the end because many of these vendors are able to get more visibility. The festival exposes their conditions and gives them more confidence about their livelihood. They all return with the motivation of getting better business,”
says Singh.
The National Street Food Festival 2016 will be held from December 23 to December 25, at JLN stadium, from 12 noon to 10 pm.