The Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry for the very first time organized a very special CSR initiative "Apish Parar Khabar" - Dalhousie Street food festival (a month long project) which started with Training Sessions from 27th January till 11th February 2020 followed by an annual gala street food festival on Saturday, 22nd February, 2020 from 5 pm to 12 am.

OBJECTIVE OF THE EVENT
To empower the street vendors of Kolkata to begin with the Dalhousie Food Street, where The Chamber worked primarily on heritage restoration of Dalhousie and livelihood enhancement of its street food vendors apart from infrastructural developments. The idea was to introduce the concepts of sanitation, environment, food safety, health, hygiene, culinary skills, branding and marketing skills, entrepreneurship and women empowerment to the street food vendors with the inputs and engagements of our stakeholders and corporate members. The target was to make this into a best practice to be emulated across the city in partnership with KMC and Industry stakeholders.

TRAINING SESSIONS
From 27th January 2020 till 11th February 2020 along with 150 Vendors. The Chamber organized 5 sensitization workshops for the street food vendors which focused on imparting knowledge about hygiene, food safety, presentation and culinary skills. The traning was provided in association with Sister Nivedita University - Institute of Hospitality Management and 6 Ballygunge Place. The vendors were taken to the Institute of Fire Service, Behala, for a session on fire hazards and safety. A full session on electrical cooking was also organised. The workshops had an average attendance of more than 160 vendors.

THE GALA FOOD FESTIVAL - On the streets of Dalhousie on 22nd February 2020
The Chamber planned a gala street food festival with 40 stalls, an inauguration ceremony after a heritage walk of the Dalhousie region, open air concert and other cultural activities on Saturday, 22nd February, 2020. The programme began with a baul song presented by Shri Gautam Das Baul following the tradition of the Bengal. It was followed by an Inaugural Ceremony addressed by Mr. Arindam Sil, Chairman, Media, Music and Film Committee, BCC&I, Mr. Mr Jitendra Kumar, Chairman, CSR Committee, BCC&I, Mr. Debashish Banerjee, MD Distribution, CESC Limited, Mr Sagar Daryani, President, NRAI and Mr Kaushik Roy, MD Phillips Carbon Black Limited. A special performance by the Children of Nav Jeevan was than followed by a performance by Shri Rupankar Bagchi.

The programme followed by a Heritage Walk guided by Ms. Reshmi Chatterjee starting from the Bengal Chamber building to GPO to Lyon's Range.

At the Street Food Festival, we had 40 food stalls by the same vendors who offered regular street food all cooked on electrict ovens (induction based). The festival began from 5 p.m. and had a huge footfall. The vendors had a huge sale and had footfalls from all across Kolkata. There was also foodfall from USA, Bangladesh, South Africa and other countries.

The festival was well appreciated throughout. The Chamber was humbled by the great and infectious enthusiasm that was brought by all our partners, sponsors and stakeholders for making this a one-of-its-kind and one of the most memorable activity in The Chamber's calendar.

ACHIEVEMENTS
▪  Vendor Empowerment.
▪  Recognition to the Vendors.
▪  Behavioral Change in the Vendor Etiquette.
▪  Improved Sanitation awareness to the Vendors.
▪  Drive towards innovation amongst Vendors in terms of Culinary Skills, hygiene and food presentation.

TO DO
▪  Work on Hygiene.
▪  Sanitation Facilities to be developed.
▪  Vendors Carts to be designed.
▪  Electrical Cooking to be introduced.