Bhubaneswar, Oct. 5: Durga Puja is round the corner and handloom seems to be high on the list of shoppers in the city.

Several handloom exhibitions are lined up one after the other, and all of them seem to be drawing huge crowds.

Sale at the Utkarsh handloom and handicraft expo, which concluded yesterday, was better then expected, officials of the state handloom and textile departmentsaid. The expo, organised by the state government at Ekamra Haat, had a wide range of Sambalpuri handloom saris and stoles such as ikkat and bomkai as well as various products from other districts of the state.

Tribal weaves from Koraput and Nabarangpur were also a part of the collections on sale here.

"The exhibition was held on the sidelines of the annual convention of Federation of Hotel and Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI). But the response was so good that though we had planned it from September 23 to 27, we continued it till October 4," said S.K. Nanda, officer in charge of Utkarsh.

He said that the expo did business of around Rs 55 lakh, way beyond what the organisers had expected. "It is because handloom saris are much sought after during the festive season," he said.

Not only are Odia handloom saris selling like hot cakes, items from all over the country seem to be popular with the Puja shoppers.

The ongoing Cottonfab exhibition organised by Awadh Hathkargha Hastshilp Evam Gramodyog Samiti, Lucknow, offers Assamese muga silk, chanderi from Madhya Pradesh, baluchari from Bengal, Bhagalpur silk from Bihar, tussar organic silk from Jharkhand and Varanasi fabric from Uttar Pradesh. "The sale is quite good and with our exhibition on till October 13, we might need to renew our stocks at least twice," said a trader from Uttar Pradesh.

The recently concluded Silk Fab also drew huge crowds while the just inaugurated handloom exhibition by the Tamil Nadu Handloom Weavers' Co-operative Society or Co-optex has become an annual affair during the Puja season owing to brisk sales.

"We have brought cotton handloom made with organically cultivated cotton. The eco-friendly handloom saris and dress material made by our weavers are extremely popular in Bhubaneswar where we have been hosting the Durga Puja exhibition for the last few years now," said K. Yuvraj, senior regional manager of Co-optex, Vijayawada.

Discounts offered at these exhibitions are a major draw for the buyers.

"Handloom is obviously expensive if there is a lot of attractive designs by the weavers. Such exhibitions offer a lot of discounts, and this helps us buy handloom saris at cheaper prices," said Mayuri Pradhan, a buyer at the Co-optex exhibition.