BSCIC fair in Tangail fails to live up to expectations

An ongoing fair in Tangail to display products of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) has been far from being able to draw buyers and visitors as per expectations, frustrating participants.

Tangail municipality Mayor Sirajul Haque Khan Alamgir inaugurated the 15-day fair at the Outer Stadium on March 10.

It was organised by the Tangail unit of the Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) with the aid of the district administration.

The BSCIC officials said the annual fair was organised after two years due to the pandemic.

A total of 72 stalls have been erected at the fair and of these, only 10 have been found to be of local SME.

The local entrepreneurs expressed their frustration, saying that the fair had not met expectation due to various reasons, causing them to incur huge losses.

"Although over a week has already passed, buyers are not showing their interest to come to the fair," said Sultana Bilkis, a female entrepreneur and owner of stall "Gharoa Ladies Fashion" displaying woodblock print and boutique items.

"Although the fair runs from 10:00am to 10:00pm, only a few visitors were arriving in the afternoon and buying nothing," she said.

Several other local women entrepreneurs including Elee of Elee Boutique, Ashika Khan of Khan Exclusive which offers handloom and jute products, and Ayesha Parvin of Ayesha Boutique also expressed frustration at almost nothing being sold in the past one week.

They blamed a lack of facilities such as electric fans, the venue selection being wrong, necessity of entry tickets and a lack of necessary publicity.

"We had requested the authorities for arranging the fair at Shaheed Srity Pouro Udyan, which sits right in the middle of the town, to draw crowds to the fair but the organiserspaid no heed to our request," told Elee.

Saleha Khatun, a resident of Purbo Adalatpara in the town, said she along with her in-laws went to the fair hoping to buy some special products of local entrepreneurs at a cheap cost.

But they returned empty-handed as there was almost nothing at the fair but some stalls showing some very common and ordinary items, which are available in local markets, she said.

"I could not understand why such a poor fair has been organised when a trade fair selling such common items ended in the town only a few weeks ago," she said.

Shahida Alam, an entrepreneur and owner of Womens' World, said the fair was supposed to promote products of local entrepreneurs but the BSCIC failed to bring them to the fair.

The organisers allowed mostly traders of common items at the fair charging Tk 15,000 for each stall and all participants are incurring huge losses every day, she said. "Then why has the fair been organised?" asked Shahida, also convenor of the Tangail women's chamber of commerce.

Informed of the allegations, Shahnaz Parvin, assistant general manager of the BSCIC Tangail unit, said they also wanted to arrange the fair at Shaheed Srity Pouro Udyan in the town but did not get permission to use the venue.

"The committee has allocated stalls for other (non-SME) traders as only a few local entrepreneurs showed their interest to take up stalls in the fair," she said.

As for the other allegations, she said those were decision taken by an "organising committee".

Mirza Masud Rubol, president of Entrepreneur Forum in Tangail, an organisation of local small-scale enterprises refuted Parvin's claims.

He said there were a few hundred small-scale enterprises in the district and they would have taken part in the fair had the BSCIC authorities invited them.

"In fact, they organised the fair in a whimsicalway," alleged Masud.

On the other hand, some locals and sports enthusiasts criticised arranging the fair at the Outer Stadium, pointing out that children practice cricket there every day.

"My son do practices cricket on several concrete pitches at the Outer Stadium under an academy," said Roksana Akter, a resident of Old Bus Stand area in the town. 

"The academy's children were told to hold their practice at the adjacent Eid Gaon field due to the BSCIC fair," she said.