Sangla Valley Household Tourism Festival begins

The model of sustainable agri-tourism initiative was designed by Chaudhary Sravan Kumar of the Agriculture University of Palampur. Local women were trained at the home science college of the university,and special efforts were made to dig out old traditional recipes to project the local culture.

“The initial concept was floated with foreign funding of $ 10,000 from Switzerland. But today it has been adopted by the locals and is on its way to self sustenance. We have been able to generate attitudinal change among locals and now at least 50 households between Sangla and Chitkul with 150 rooms have registered with the government as approved places of home stay,” said Vice-Chancellor of CSK Agriculture University Palampur Dr Tej Pratap.

Return of traditional cuisin

In these three years,the university had been successful in educating locals about nutritional value of local grains like Buckwheat and dry fruits like apricot (called locally known as chuli),for revival.

Two local delicacies,juta and chanta,that were fading out of Kinnaur kitchens,were reintroduced and have now caught up among the tourists for their interesting names.

The juta is a local bread made of flour of locally cultivated grain oghla and phaphra (Buckwheat) and served with chanta butter made from milk of a cross breed of Yak and cow. Geema (local sausages) is also another dish to look out for.