President Droupadi Murmu, alongside chief minister Yogi Adityanath, launched the UP International Trade Show at India Expo Mart in Greater Noida’s Knowledge Park on Thursday. This event, to be held till September 25, is already drawing attendees from various backgrounds, thanks to its array of stalls encompassing art, technology, healthcare, and agriculture, promising a successful show.
In the realm of art and craft, even on a weekday, the venue managed to draw in the local crowd, who eagerly explored various stalls, making purchases from the exhibitors. Interestingly, some young adults were spotted snapping photos in front of a carpet maker’s booth. Adorning the stall was a wall carpet featuring intricate machine work, with a distinctive touch—the image woven into the carpet was none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s portrait.
The exhibitor, who is from Ahmedabad and usually exports their carpet work to the United States and Europe, said that this artwork was made after 2014. Later a similar wall carpet was sent to the PM as a gift from the company.
However, spread across 15 exhibition halls, this event turned out to be a perfect melange of big and small companies highlighting their products under flashy lights as well as more subdued settings. Companies like Vivo, Tata, LG, and Honda drew the attention of both young adults and international visitors to their well-illuminated stalls, while there were stalls with handcrafted products by almost unknown makers hoping to sell as many items as possible during the weekend.
One such stall had handcrafted house decorations made by a woman from Deoria. She and her husband along with a child were sitting inside the stall, hoping to catch people’s eye. Usually, they sell their products online through Facebook and Instagram, but when they got the opportunity to have a stall in the trade show, they thought this was the best way to exhibit their designs in public. Paarangat Designs, another women-led B2B company from Lucknow that exports the Chikankari garments overseas, came to the show to attract customers as its first attempt to try the B2C model.
There was another stall by the UP government where handmade table mats and other products were on display. Men and women from the Budaun Centre, where training is being given for embroidery work, came to the Knowledge Park with their products. The women workers said that because of the availability of such centres a minimum of 100 women are now able to earn.
There was a stall by the UP Department of Horticulture and Food Processing, inside which an 85-year-old man with a gamcha and white dhoti-kurta was seen selling Kalanamak rice from Siddharth Nagar. He has land in Kapilvastu, where this rice is being produced and 500 farmers work there to make sure that this rice doesn’t get lost.
Around his stall there were others, some of them displaying solar panels, others tech products, health apps, and even drones. Garuda Aerospace was one of them, showcasing its drones and attracting many tech-savvy visitors. Another drone company, TSAW, which operates from the IIT-Delhi campus displayed its drone models in the exhibition zone.
But somewhere far from the tech equipment section, there were some people wearing chappals, shoes, untucked shirts, and holding plastic bags, looking at the decorations of the venue. They were farmers from Hapur who took a bus ride to find agricultural products for themselves. They checked out some machines and tractors for farming as well as visited some stalls displaying products like seeds and fertilisers. One of the farmers said that they knew this was not like a Kisan Mela, but still, they managed to find some useful booths.
At the first-ever UP International Trade Show, the state government has also set up many booths such as UP Tourism, UPPCL, Namami Gange, Handloom & Textile Department, Ayush Department, Swachh Bharat Mission, Culture Department, One District One Product, and Jal Jeevan Mission.
