Civil Aviation and Tourism Minister Rashed Khan Menon said the government will bring all street food vendors of Dhaka city under hygiene programme to make the country’s traditional food popular among tourists.
“Street food is an integral part of tourism around the world. Many tourists specially the bag packers go for street food to get experience of local culture as well as considering their low prices,” he said this on Tuesday while speaking at the inaugural function of a hygiene training programme for street food venders at Public Library auditorium in the city.
“Street food of Thailand and many other countries are marked as one of the major tourist attractions. We would also like to present our mouth watering street food as tourism products. But for that we have to prepare those in a hygienic way,” he added.
Mentioning that nearly 60 lakh people in the capital are having street food daily and considering this huge consumption of street food daily, the Bangladesh Tourism Board (BTB) has taken initiatives to train the street food venders, the minister said.
“We will expand this hygiene programme for the street food vendors in all tourist spots gradually,” he said.
The minister also urged the city corporations to take initiatives for giving legitimacy to street food venders under consultation with the law enforcing agencies and other concerned departments of the government in a plan way.
Food hygiene and tourism experts imparted the day-long training to 100 street food venders of Shahbagh and Dhaka university areas. The BTB in association with Parjatan Bichitra, a travel magazine arranged the training programme.
Presided over by BTB Director Nikhil Ranjan Roy, the inaugural session was also addressed by Civil Aviation and Tourism Secretary S M Ghulam Farroque, Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation (BPC) Chairman Dr Aparup Choudhury, Chairman of Tourism and Hospitality Department of the Dhaka University Dr Shaker Ahmed and Parjatan Bichitra Editor Mohiuddin Helal also spoke on the occasion, among others.
