The mood is festive among farmers and traders who are busy setting up stalls on Bull Temple Road, Basavanagudi, for the annual Kadlekai Parishe (groundnut festival), which will officially open on Monday. A good monsoon and an excellent harvest this time are a far cry from last year which resulted in groundnuts being sold at exorbitant prices. Organisers are expecting a footfall of nearly five lakh, and business of about ₹1 crore.
“We are expecting participation of nearly 1,200 farmers and traders here, and the BBMP has increased the area for stalls by about 30% from last year, when the participation was a little over 900,” said Murthy, former manager of the Dodda Ganapati Group of temples.
- The groundnut varieties available at the fair are raw, raw roasted, dry roasted, boiled, and three-seeded groundnuts
- The parishe sees the involvement of the departments of Muzrai, Police and Health, BBMP and Bescom
- Stalls are charged from ₹50 to ₹250 a day, depending on the space allotted
- More than 500 police personnel on duty; 25 CCTV cameras installed
- 120 kg each of groundnuts will be offered for the abhisheka of Dodda Ganapati and Dodda Basavanna on the inaugural day
It will be peanuts
For the consumers, groundnuts will be more affordable this time around. While one sack, which holds 60 kg, sold for ₹5,500 to ₹6,000 last year, this year the prices have dropped to ₹3,500. “We are selling one seru (a unit of measurement) at ₹25 to ₹30 because we have invested in cleaning and roasting the groundnuts, as well as in labour, transportation and rent at the parishe,” said groundnut farmer from Malur, R. Nagaraju, who has transported nearly 42 sacks of groundnuts to Bengaluru for the fair.
He added that the prices had come down this year because he had not incurred additional costs on cultivation, such as on water tankers. “My sprinklers worked without any power cuts. Most farmers have seen good yield in red, brown and black soil patterns,” he added.
Thimmaiah, a farmer from Kolar, has brought 20 sacks of groundnuts for the fair; last year he had stocked barely six sacks. “We hope to sell more, as we have got more,” said Mr. Thimmaiah happily.
The parishe stalls are spread over 4 km — from Ramakrishna Square to APS College Road; from Bugle Rock to DVG Road; Gokhale Institute to Mallikarjuna temple; and from Mount Joy Road to Hanumanthanagar 50 ft Road.
While the parishe officially ends on Tuesday, it usually goes on for a few more days as farmers stay on to clear their stock. Already, groundnut sellers from Chintamani, Magadi and Kolar, as well as traders from other States such as Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu have occupied pavements on either side of the Bull Temple Road.
‘Not enough cotton bags’
BMS college students and teachers, who source cotton bags especially for the parishe and supply them for free to most stalls, said there is not enough for the huge crowd. Somanna of Chintamani, who sells nearly 100 sacks of groundnuts a year, said, “We lose business if we do not use plastic carry bags, so we are helpless.”
Legend has it that more than a century ago, groundnuts cultivated in the area, Sunkenahalli, would be largely eaten away by bulls. As a solution, elders decided to offer the produce to Dodda Basavanna installed by Kempe Gowda nearly 500 years ago.