It has been unanimously decided in the meeting that this year Visva-Bharati University (VBU) will organise the Poush Mela after a hiatus of three years. The proposal will be forwarded to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) for seeking environmental clearances. The acting vice-chancellor of VBU, Professor Sanjay Kumar Mallick, representative of the Governor, registrar and head of the departments of four departments participated in the meeting. It has been decided that the Poush Mela will be held this year though it will be on a smaller scale.

The Santiniketan Trust is entrusted with the work of organising the Poush Mela. Due to the outbreak of Covid-19 global pandemic, the Poush Mela has not been held since 2020. The VBU is now waiting for the final clearance letter from the NGT. Eminent environmentalist Subhas Dutta, former MP Anupam Hazra and others have batted for organising the Poush Mela in Santiniketan this year. The pressure on VBU is huge to restart the fair as in September Santiniketan bagged the World Cultural Heritage Site tag from UNESCO. The Santiniketan Trust is finding it tough to squeeze the size of the Poush Mela as about 2,000 stalls participate in the biggest cultural extravaganza in Santiniketan. This year, it is expected that the crowd will be more due to the UNESCO tag and the gap of over three years.

Hotels, resorts, restaurants, handicraft stalls all anxiously wait for the fair as they expect mega business from tourists across the globe. The time span for organising the Poush Mela is very short and both the VBU and Santiniketan Trust have to work extra hours to organise the mega event. Former vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty has stopped organizing Poush Mela and Vasant Utsav, the two of the biggest cultural attractions of Santiniketan citing infrastructural inadequacies since 2020.

Chandranath Singha, MSME minister and sitting MLA of Bolpur has also expressed his satisfaction over the issue that once again VBU has decided to orga nise the fair this year and has offered all help and support from the state government