Mango Mela returns to Lalbagh after two-year Covid-imposed gap

The Horticulture Department is getting ready to organise the mela by May end or early June in the Lalbagh gardens that would directly benefit 200 mango farmers

The familiar scent of ripened fruits, heaps of yellow in makeshift stalls, food lovers impatient to savour the king of summer flavours: The ‘Mango Mela’ promises everything Bengalureans have been missing since 2019.

Now, after a two-year Covid-imposed gap, the Horticulture Department is getting ready to organise the mela by May end or early June in Lalbagh Gardens that would directly benefit 200 mango farmers. The Lalbagh mela is the biggest mango fair among several held in districts and Hopcoms stalls.

The mela opens at a time when most varieties of mango would have flooded the market, amid an expected 50% drop in yield due to unprecedented weather conditions during the flowering and delayed fruiting process.

“Depending on the arrival of fruits, we will start district-level melas after the second week of May. In Bengaluru, we will organise it in both Lalbagh and Cubbon Park by the first or second week of June,” Rajender Kumar Kataria, Principal Secretary, Horticulture Department, told DH, adding that the plan will alter if the cases increase and restrictions are imposed.

Kataria said Lalbagh would be the hub of the mela, while activities in Cubbon Park will be on a smaller scale.

Karnataka State Mango Development and Marketing Corporation Ltd (KSMDMCL) sources said the supply chain has extended in a different direction during the mela’s two-year absence.

Farmers, however, are happy that they could sell the fruits directly to consumer in the mela.

“We linked up with apartment federations, sent fruits to Delhi, and utilised online portals as one more way of selling mangoes to ensure that the absence of the mela did not cause major losses to farmers,” said C G Nagaraju, managing director of KSMDMCL.

While the corporation will continue working with sales channels developed during the Covid outbreak, the mela will also take large varieties of mango to places like Belagavi, Dharwad, Chamarajanagar, and Ramanagara.

“We will also organise the mela in non-mango-growing regions like Koppal district and southern Karnataka,” Kataria said.

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