The annual Cuttack Bali Jatra, which had been postponed the previous two years, enjoyed a roaring success this year, with sales believed to have exceeded Rs 100 crore as of yesterday.
A brief details about Cuttack Bali Jatra-2022 records trade of Over Rs 100 Crore:
One of the largest open-air fairs in the nation, the Baliyatra, or “voyage to Bali,” is held annually to honor the 2,000-year-old maritime and cultural connections between ancient Kalinga (modern-day Odisha) and Bali as well as other South and Southeast Asian regions like Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Burma (Myanmar), and Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
The festival’s beginning on Kartik Purnima (the full moon night in the Kartik month) can be dated back more than a thousand years. A number of ports were located in the Bay of Bengal, and on this auspicious day, when the winds were favorable for the boats, known as boita, to sail, sadhavas (traders)would typically set off on their journey across the sea.
According to historians, Kalinga and Southeast Asia frequently traded goods like gold, jewelry, silk, camphor, pepper, cinnamon, and cardamom.
To celebrate boita bandana, or the worshipping of the boats, thousands of people still sail ornamental small boats fashioned of banana stems, paper, or thermocol throughout Odisha.
Over 50 lakh people visited the 10-day event from November 8 to November 17 during that time.
This year at the Bali Jatra, the Pallishree Mela, which is put on by the Odisha Rural Development and Marketing Society (ORMAS), recorded sales of over Rs 21 crore. The ORMAS set up over 470 booths, including 30 food establishments.
The fair’s closing ceremony, which the state government prolonged by a day at the Cuttack Municipal Corporation’s request, featured Governor Ganeshi Lal as the principal guest (CMC).
Over 2,100 kids from 22 schools participated in the event, and at the nearby Barabati Stadium, they created more than 22,000 paper boats in under 35 minutes, earning the event a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.
The CMC designed a “Cuttack in Cuttack” zone, which was unique to Bali Jatra, where small replicas of major landmarks from the millennium city were built.
The area also had beautifully adorned trees, which attracted a lot of people for selfies and group shots.
The Baliyatra of this year, which ended on Thursday, has earned a spot in the Guinness World Records for pulling off an amazing origami achievement by making lovely paper masterpieces.
