Odisha Parab Opens in Varanasi With 32 Craft and Food Stalls Through 24 August

Odisha Tourism, working with FICCI, is staging Odisha Parab at Deendayal Hastkala Sankul in Varanasi from 22 to 24 August 2026. Public entry is free, Additional Director Bishwajit Rautray said in Saturday opening-window remarks timed around 02:09 IST.

The venue is Deendayal Hastkala Sankul — also known as the Trade Facilitation Centre and Crafts Museum, the city’s main crafts and trade exhibition complex. Organisers have put up 32 stalls: 22 for crafts, 10 for cuisine. Live demonstrations are listed in Pattachitra painting, palm-leaf engraving, silver filigree and Dhokra metal work — forms long tied to Odisha’s handloom and handicraft map.

A 21 August Odisha Tourism briefing in Varanasi quoted Deepankar Mohapatra on the state’s soft power through handicrafts, handloom and food. He spoke of 22 craft stalls to be inaugurated and 10 food stalls. Briefing copy did not settle his department title cleanly across versions, so the remarks are attributed as published from that briefing.

Partner departments and bodies named in the briefing material include Odia Language, Literature and Culture; Handlooms, Textiles and Handicrafts; Mission Shakti; ORMAS; and the Odisha Tourism Development Corporation. Off the stall floor, the programme is described as carrying a tourism roadshow, a diaspora meeting, and B2B and B2G sessions meant to thicken tourism and cultural links with the Varanasi visitor economy.

August in Kashi is already loud with Shrawan queues and hotel gatherings. Parking the Parab inside Hastkala Sankul keeps craft demos and food counters in a purpose-built exhibition hall instead of on the riverfront. Free entry, if it holds through 24 August as Rautray said, matters for pilgrims and city-goers who skip ticketed shows when the lanes are already full.

By Saturday afternoon, English reporting was still mostly preview and opening-window language. No independent post-inaugural piece named who cut a ribbon or gave a formal inaugural address. The story is the three-day showcase — stall counts, venue, partners, free-entry line — not a VIP ceremony with speakers filled in from guesswork.

Pattachitra, palm-leaf engraving, silver filigree and Dhokra are the craft forms visitors are being invited to watch live. The food stalls sit beside them as a second pull for families already in the city for Shrawan. The roadshow and B2B–B2G track sit off the public floor for tour operators and officials. Those strands are how organisers have described the weekend; they should not be merged into other hospitality programming running in Varanasi at the same time.

Odisha Parab runs free of charge at Deendayal Hastkala Sankul from 22 to 24 August, with 32 stalls — 22 for craft and 10 for cuisine — as printed in the opening-window coverage.