International Sand Art Festival at Chandrabhaga to boost Odisha Tourism

Bhubaneswar, Oct 10: Like every year, International Sand Art Festival at Chandrabhaga beach, coinciding with Konark Festival 2015 will be organised from 1st to 5th December. The objective of the festival is to encourage the young sand artists of the state to display their masterpieces on the golden sands of the river which will help them to expose their artistic excellence and to promote Odisha tourism across the globe. The festival is aimed to attract more foreign and domestic tourist to the state in order to provide a major leap for tourism potential of Odisha.

Sri L.N. Gupta, Principal Secretary, Tourism who chaired a meeting on the organisation of the festival said that steps will be taken to bring at least 10 renowned international sand artists along with more than 25 national level artists to participate in the festival. Besides, the winners of the festival held in previous years will also be eligible to participate, Sri Gupta said.

Odisha Tourism Development Corporation will be the executing agency for arrangement of about 35 stalls for the International and National Artists including women, disabled and differently challenged artists. The
stalls will be ready by 30th November, he said.

It has been decided to have competitions amongst participants in order to bring quality and to boost the artists. This year, a competition among the women sand artists is also planned. Padmashree Sudarsan Pattnaik, Internationally acclaimed sand artist will coordinate this festival. The festival has drawn global attention along with interest on state tourism potential previously which is expected to grow substantially, said Sri Pattnaik.

Among others Sri Anil Kumar Samal, Director, Tourism, Satyajit Chakrabarti, Supdt. Engineer, OTDC and T.K. Parida, Secretary, Odisha Lalit Kala Academy were also present.