The 14th Fewa Nepali New Year Festival is kicking off in Komagane Park, Pokhara, on Tuesday. The five-day festival organised by Paschimanchal Hotel Association, an umbrella body of hotel operators of western Nepal, is expected to be attended by around 40,000 people from across the country.

Organised with the theme, ‘Tourism, Culture and Food’, the event, being held on the bank of the Fewa Lake, will feature cultural shows, pop concerts and stalls. There will be 14 food stalls and 45 commercial stalls at the event venue. 

Most of the food stalls at the festival are being set up by hotels and restaurants from Lakeside. However, locals from nearby villages will also be selling their cuisines. Commercial stalls, on the other hand, will showcase agricultural commodities and goods that promote Nepali culture.

One of the major attractions of the festival is the boat race which will be held on the second day of the event. The organisers will also host a 2km “tourist race” titled ‘Run for Fun’. To keep the visitors entertained, musical concerts, folk dance shows and comedy acts will be performed at the event. A section of the park will also be dedicated to the children, where they can play games and enjoy rides.

“We hope these attractions will make the festival grand,” said Bikal Tulachan, coordinator of the festival organising committee. “We are doing this to promote the culture, cuisine and tourism of our country.”

One of the major objectives of the festival, according to Tulachan, is to promote domestic tourism. 

The organisers believe that further promotion of domestic tourism can augment the income of the tourism industry. To meet this objective, hotels in Pokhara have already started floating economic travel packages for domestic and foreign tourists. 

The organisers also want to use the festival as a platform to promote Save Fewa campaign, a drive aimed at protecting Fewa Lake and its surroundings which are becoming more polluted every year. A certain portion of the funds generated from sales of festival tickets, according to organisers, will be handed over to the Fewa Conservation Trust as in the previous years.

This year, each festival ticket is priced at Rs50. Organisers said Rs5 from sales of every ticket will be extended to the Trust. The Trust currently has a fund of around Rs400,000. The money raised by the Trust was previously used to clean Basundhara Park in Lakeside and operate waste purification programmes in Fewa Lake, among others.

“We are serious about protecting the environment around the lake,” said Tulachan. “It is very important to conserve both the lake, and culture and environment around it.”

The event is being co-sponsored by the Nepal Tourism Board, Gorkha Brewery, the World Wildlife Fund, Nepal Telecom, and Pokhara Lekhnath Municipality, among others.