Santiniketan, Nov 13 (PTI) West Bengal’s heritage winter fair ‘Poush Mela’ is set to be held in Santiniketan on a grand scale again after a hiatus of four years, organisers said on Wednesday.
Organisers Visva-Bharati university and Santiniketan Trust decided to organise the fair in the traditional format on the pre-Covid scale with required back-up support provided by the district administration.
“The scale and grandeur of the Poush Mela will be similar to that of the period before the Covid pandemic in 2019. The local administration has promised to provide logistical support, certain basic amenities, and security,” Visva-Bharati spokesperson Atig Ghosh said.
The Visva Bharati and the Santiniketan Trust had backed out after initially deciding to hold the century-old fair in 2023 citing time constraints to hold it on a grand scale.
The state government had then stepped in and a far smaller winter fair was organised during the same period of the Poush Mela by the administration last December.
The fair, held on the seventh day of Bengali month ‘Poush’ which falls in late December, was first organised by ‘Maharshi’ Debendranath Tagore, father of Visva-Bharati founder Rabindranath Tagore, in 1894 to showcase the handicrafts, heritage and culture of Bengal, particularly Birbhum district.
Since 1951, the ‘Poush Mela’ has been organised by Visva-Bharati in collaboration with the Trust and with support from the West Bengal government. The Trust, also set up by Debendranath Tagore, owns around 11 bighas in and around the varsity campus.
The fair was not held in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 outbreak, and again in 2022 because of infrastructural l difficulties faced by the organisers. PTI COR SUS NN
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