Street food fest to have hundreds of vendors from across India

If you want a hassle-free treat of that lip-smacking "real" street food, here is your chance.
Breaking out of the usual format of commercial caterers selling staple food to visitors, the upcoming National Street Food Festival has lined up 800 street vendors from 25 states of India raring to serve regional flavours to Delhiites.
Amritsar's Tejinder to Telangana's Shankar, harassed by local administration officials and loved by the masses who lap up the fares they serve, street vendors from across Indian states have similar tales to share.
Making a platform available to share those tales along with mouth watering delicacies, the National Association of Street Vendors of India (NASVI) has organised the four-day festival at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, to be inaugurated by Chef Sanjeev Kapoor on December 25.

Shankar who sells 'Chicken 65' near NIT Warangal says, "I want to showcase the various recipes of the newly carved out state of Telangana including chapal pulsu, a fish gravy curry and lesser known desserts like kurbani ka meetha, kaddu ka khir".
According to NASVI National Coordinator Arbind Singh, Shankar along with 20 more vendors from Telangana are putting up five stalls that will serve vegetarian food, fish items, chicken and mutton delicacies, and local variants of desserts.

The participants have also been given five days training by the Ministry of Tourism through Global Hotel Management College.
"Motivating the street vendors to attend five days training has not been easy as their business gets affected. But it has been an enriching experience as they have learnt to improve cooking, presentation of food, hygiene as well as customer relations," Singh says.

The festival will also see the vendors vying for the Most Popular Vendor Award which went to Tejinder Singh last year whose butter chicken and amritsari naan won many a heart.