Cuttack, Nov. 20: The surprise rush of visitors to the Bali yatra fair left some traders stumped today.

The past 48 hours have been difficult for Raghuveer Singh. Singh and his team from Jaipur were simply unable to attend to the rush of visitors to the fair over the weekend.

Singh's kiosk, Apno Rajasthan in the food corner of Pallishree Mela, has been the first choice of visitors for the last three years. Rajasthani delicacies such as dal bati churma, pyaz kachuri, dahi lassi and jalebis are a hit with gastronomes at the fair.

Ups and downs have been the flavour of the fair this year with demonetisation of high-value notes hitting daily sales since the Bali yatra inauguration on November 14.

However, the heavy footfall of visitors over the weekend brought the smiles back to the faces of traders; they have been able to do brisk business yesterday and today.

But, the sudden heavy turnout of visitors at the fair also created problems for a number of food kiosks, as they had not anticipated such a massive footfall.

Like Singh, many traders had a tough time dealing with the crowd of more than six lakh visitors today. About five lakh people turned up yesterday. A district administration official said the total turnout of visitors at Bali yatra over the last two days has been nearly 11 lakh.

"We saw a heavy turnout of visitors over the last 24 hours. It has been an uphill task preparing delicacies for so many people many others had paid in advance for food parcels," said Singh.

The traders expect the sales figures to increase further till tomorrow, the last day of the fair.

The large number of visitors led to problems in traffic management as well. All roads leading to the Bali yatra ground were choked and police personnel were deployed within 37 acres of the ground.

"This is the first time we set up a kiosk to sell kebabs and other local delicacies from Uttar Pradesh. Although overall sales were poor, we managed to do brisk business at the end," said Mahendra Singh, a trader from Uttar Pradesh.

Chief executive officer of the Odisha Rural Development and Marketing Society Bipin Rout said that so far, various traders and self-help groups had done business worth Rs 6.5 crore. "We expect the overall sales to go up as there will be heavy turnout tonight as well."

A trader from Jodhpur, Rakesh Chouhan, said the overall sales at Bali yatra have seen a steep rise over the past two days.

"We were even accepting old notes as business was down. But the sales have jumped over 50 per cent over the past two days," he said.