Delhi’s Trade Fair opens for public, here’s what you can explore
Tickets are not available at the gates of Pragati Maidan or the Pragati Maidan Metro station this year, and daily number of visitors has been capped at 60,000.
The ongoing India International Trade Fair (IITF) opened for the general public at 9.30am on Saturday. Though the space allotted to the fair at Pragati Maidan has been reduced by almost half, some say this may allow them to cover more ground and stalls in a shorter period of time. Visitors will be allowed entry till 7.30pm.
Some exhibitors had been worried that as the permanent state and central department pavilions had been razed for construction of an exhibition centre, visitors would not be able to find them. However, with compact space, the stalls, halls and hangars of the fair follow almost a straight line from gate number one to gate 18, allowing people to visit almost all the pavilions, food courts and stores on the way.
“We don’t have to walk much between pavilions. You can cover almost all the pavilions in a single day now,” said Mona Oberoi, North Delhi resident who said she has been visiting the trade fair religiously for years now.
Tickets are not available at the gates of Pragati Maidan or the Pragati Maidan metro station this year, and daily number of visitors has been capped at 60,000. Tickets are to be bought in advance either online, or at other metro stations. The fair, which started on November 14, was open only for business visitors for the first four days.
If you enter the Pragati Maidan through gate number one, your first stops will be hangars number one, two and three, where the pavilions of Delhi, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, UP, Punjab, and Jharkhand, among others, are set up. Food stalls serving Litti Chokha from Bihar or onion kachoris from Rajasthan are right outside on the way to hangars four and five, which have more state pavilions.
“The food at the fair is one of our favourite things. My kids had already said that they would want to eat chole bhature, chaat and kulfis, before we even got here,” said a father visiting the fair with his two children on Friday. He did not want to share his name.
Hall no 7 has khadi products, coir and jute products, and also stalls as part of the Hunar Haat of the minority affairs ministry. Outside, the Saras stalls stock handicraft from across the country. Hangar 15, which is one of the largest temporary hangars, and has 11 state pavilions including those of Kerala, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, and Rajasthan, come up next.
Right across, you find the stalls of the social justice and empowerment ministry of social justice and empowerment for more handicrafts, clothes and other trinkets.
“Business is going well. I just made a sale of Rs 4,000. If this keeps up, it will go well,” said Ajaj Hussein, from Lucknow, who was selling chikankaari items.
The foreign pavilion is at hall 18, where you will find lamps from Turkey, trinkets from Thailand, dry fruits from Afghanistan, shoes from Italy, and candies from the UK, among other things. The closest gate from here would be gate 18, which takes you to the metro station.
