The eight-day maritime trade fair, Bali Yatra, will begin on the occasion of Kartika Purnima at Gadagadia Ghat on the banks of the Mahanadi in Odisha’s Cuttack.
The fair commemorates 2,000-year-old maritime and cultural links between ancient Kalinga (modern Odisha) and Bali and other South and Southeast Asian regions like Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Burma (Myanmar) and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The event is marked by a massive open-air market where a variety of goods, including traditional handicrafts, are bought and sold.
The other highlights at this year’s fair include tunnel aquarium, digital exhibition, art exhibition, eco-friendly fire and multimedia and laser light shows, rural pavilion, handicrafts, urban SHG enclosure inside ‘Cuttack in Cuttack’, water sports and musical evenings.
The Odisha Rural Development and Marketing Society (ORMAS) have allotted 420 stalls to traders at the venue where art and crafts along with an array of handlooms, handicrafts, agri-horticulture value-added products, authentic spices of women producers and artisans from
across 30 districts of Odisha and 22 other states like Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Manipur, Tripura, and Chhattisgarh along with showcased at Pallishree Mela.