Street Food Festival, 2012
Main Lawn, Constitution Club
Rafi Marg, New Delhi
Inauguration: 4pm, 14 December
Timings: 4 pm to 10 pm, 14 December
12 noon to 10 pm, 15 &16 December
It goes without saying that the street food is not just palatable, inexpensive and convenient, but also is a large source of employment generation for thousands and thousands of informal sector workers. Moreover, Street food is a treasure house of local culinary traditions and is increasingly playing an important role as an enhancer and force multiplier of tourism sector all over the world.
Importance of Street Food:
The street food vendors are valuable because it is a large significant area supporting the livelihoods of millions of the urban poor. The convenience and low prices make street food the most favoured choice of the migrant workers in the large cities. The concept of traditional street food has acquired new dimensions in developed countries, with food streets/ food centres emerging as new tourist attractions. Major tourist destinations abroad invariably have food streets offering exotic local foods. Street food has indeed become the fast food of developing countries. It caters to the same kind of need for inexpensive, available food. It provides a service for people who can’t afford the time or money and the hard working poor have little of either- for a bit sit down meal.
Need of the Street Food Festival:
Street food vendors are disadvantaged because there is usually no support from formal institutions to improve their businesses or protect them from external influences. The usual response at policy level is that they sell unhygienic low-quality food, dump garbage, engage in criminal activities and are a nuisance to maintaining law and order. They often have no legal status, resulting in victimisation by the police, public health institutions and local government authorities. Of late, street food vending is under severe attack by the elite policy makers, administrators and courts.
NASVI Perspective
As the leading platform of street vendors of India the National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) has always tried to champion the causes of the street food vendors and help them assert with their acumen and brilliance of profession. For NASVI, promoting street food and cementing the identity of street food vendors is closely linked with preserving and promoting the social- cultural diversity of India.
Objectives behind Street Food Festival
- To mobilize street food vendors across the country and to exhibit and serve their local culinary traditions
- To promote healthy and hygienic food vending practices among the street food vendors across the states of India.
- To further promote federations of street food vendors and associate them with NASVI so that the bargaining power of the vendors increases in securing their rights and entitlements from the state.
- To use the festival as an advocacy event to influence the government to ensure that the street food vendors too need secured and dignified livelihood.
Street Food Festival, 2012
Though NASVI had organized street food festivals in 2009 (Hyderabad) and 2010 and 2011 (Delhi) also, but those were not at larger scales. This year NASVI is pulling the resources at command and vows to turn it as mega event for Delhites. The festival is aimed at promoting the street foods from the streets across India with hygiene and affordable prices in the tough time of growing food insecurity and inflation.
The Street Food Festival, 2012 would be held at main lawns of VP House near Parliament in Delhi on 14-16 December. Approximately 50 street food stalls of different states from Kerala to Assam and from Punjab to West Bengal, Jharkhand and Orissa would be there in the festival.
The street food would consist not just of snacks, but other more substantial dishes including Odisha dishes, Bengali plates with prawns in mustard and pieces of steamed fish wrapped in banana leaf, pieces of makke ki roti with amazing saag from Punjab and Bihari thali of mutton cooked in entire bulbs of garlic with rice. Kerala chicken, fish, putta and egg curry, medu vada and Jharkhand banana jalebi would be other hits.
NASVI has also launched an aggressive social media campaign to make the event a grand one. A separate Facebook page has been created to enable more and more urban citizens to participate in the event. One can visit the page by clicking link: www.facebook.com/streetfoodfest
Nasvi India 