BY DEBASHREE CHAKRABORTY
KOLKATA, 16 JUNE 2023:
Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has planned to set up three food streets in three different parts of City of Joy to boost tourism in the state.
These three food streets will come at North, South and Central Kolkata. It is still not decided where the fourth food street will come up in the state.
At a meeting in which comissioner of Kolkata Muncipal Corporation, Vinod Kumar, Special Comissioner, Somenath Dey, and other officials of the light, sewerage, sanitation etc were present.
The officials will visit the places in the three areas to find the suiatble places to set up the three food streets.
The West Bengal government has received approval to set up four food streets in the state from the union ministry of housing and urban affairs with technical support from Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).
The central goverrnment has approved to set up 100 food streets in 100 districts of the country to promote healthy and hygenic street food in the country.
The union Housing and Urban Affairs ministry has allocated Rs.100 crores for the project, Rs 1 crores funds for each of these 100 food streets. Not only that the centre also plans to train 25 lakhs food business operators to boost tourism.
The funding of these projects will be sourced from the National Health Mission. The union government has recognised the significant contributions of the street food vendors in the Indian economy. However, in most cases the street foods avaialble in the country are not hyegenic.
These 100 food streets will be aesthetically decorated and will have food carts, floor tiles, greenery, modern stalls, toilets, drinking water supply, sanitation, proper lighting systems, seating arrangements etc.
Not only domestic tourists but the efforts are also to boost the hygenic foods to the foreign tourists coming in the country through these food streets.
Kolkata, Lucknow, Delhi, Mumbai, Amritsar, Hyderabad, Jaipur and Gangtok is famous for street foods.
KOLKATA : A PARADISE OF STREET FOODS
Due to rapid growth and urbanisation in these days fast food stalls have become quite popular. Popular street foods in Kolkata that are simply irresitable are chaat, bhelpuri,jhalmuri, phoochka, ghugni, rolls, mughlai, chow, momos, singara , idly, dhosa or the steaming baos in China Town.
About five years ago the West Bengal government had a similar plan to set up five food zones in Kolkata from where the famous street foods of the city would be sold in a hygienic manner. The project was targeted towards foreigners, who love street food but often baulk at having food made in conditions which are, by their standards, unhygienic.
The five zones have been identified in 2018 were at Dharmatala, Dalhousie, the area around Victoria Memorial, Jorasanko and Millennium Park. The state Government had planned provide the street vendors in these areas special training to prepare theirs foods in a hygienic way. But the project did not finally come up.
The Durga Puja of Kolkata has bagged the UNESCO World Heritage Tag for intangible cultural heritage and the Durga Puja carnival last year has drwan a large number of foren tourists.
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