Bhubaneswar: Administrative preparations have started for the annual Konark Festival-2019, which will be held in Konark from December 1 to 5.
Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy, Thursday, reviewed the preparedness here at Lok Seva Bhawan and directed Tourism department officials to focus on quality of the programmes and participating troops for escalating the festival to a world-class tourism and cultural show.
The matters relating to sequence of the programmes, selection of items and troops were discussed in the meeting.
It was decided in the meeting that the cultural troop from Indonesia would perform in the festival. The troops having national and international fame from different parts of India would perform at the festival as well.
Tripathy directed to give place to various classical dance forms and songs of India along with Odissi dance and music. The festival would be held from December 1 to December 5, the peak tourist season in Odisha.
Each day there would be an Odissi programme followed by other classical dance recitals. The dance forms like Kuchipudi, Bharatnatyam, Kathak, Mohiniattam and Manipuri would be presented by the troops from various states.
Tourism secretary Vishal Kumar Dev said that Konark Festival would be followed by other great cultural events like Mukteswar Festival from January 14 to 16, Rajarani Festival from January 18 to 20 and Dhauli Utsav from February 6 to 8.