Festival of folk colours, music commences at Mansar

Artists performing at Mansar festival on Saturday.
Artists performing at Mansar festival on Saturday.

Excelsior Correspondent

JAMMU, Mar 27: A festival of folk colours and Music began today here at Mansar amid much enthusiasm and zeal.
‘Fulkari-2021’ festival being organised by Tourism department in collaboration with Atlas Event Management, is the first of its kind event held after the COVID pandemic.
The celebrations started with a fun filled adventure activity – a Mountain bike rally from Surinsar to Mansar which was flagged off by Dr Naseem Javaid Chowdhary- Director, Tourism Jammu and Neelam Khajuria, Joint Director, Tourism Jammu.

Over 20 participants joined the bike rally to showcase the immense potential for adventure activities in the area.
The other events in the series were nature walk and live painting competition etc.
Several reputed painters namely Vir ji Sumbli, Sakshi Khullar, Vishali Bhat, Priya Koul and Ankush participated in the competition. The colourful expression of various tourist destinations on canvas was a visual treat for everyone. The winners of these competitions will be announced later.
Directorate of Tourism also officially announced four more competitions starting from today i.e. bird watching competition at Mansar, Photography Competition, Videography Competition and Jammu tag line competition. These competitions will be held over a period of one week.
In the evening, a cultural programme was held which included local performances by Rinku Ji from Mansar, Police Rapper Dheeraj Kumar, Rabjot Singh and Group, Jogi Jee etc
The main highlights of the event were celebrity performance by Rohanpreet Singh and a scintillating Dogra ethnic fashion show organised by NIFD Jammu. The fashion show was first of its kind in Jammu and left the public enthralled.
On the occasion, the achievers of Jammu in different fields like Upasana Mahajan, Kritika Khana, Onkar Singh Batra, Ankit Sharma, Sugam Bral, Kavneet Kour, Sakshi Khullar, Ashima Mahajan, Sonali Dogra, Chandeep Singh, Kuldeep Hans, Rohit Sharma, Antima Manhas, Jeevan Kumar, Abhishek Bharti and Shwetima were felicitated by Lal Chand, DDC member Udhampur.
Other officers present on the occasion were ADDC, Samba ,Rachna Sharma; ADDC, Udhampur, Ashok Sharma; CEO Surinsar Mansar Development Authority, Dr. Gurwinder Jeet Singh; Deputy Director Tourism Jammu, Additional Secretary, Dept of Tourism Waseem Raja besides other.