Srinagar, April 1 (Scoop News) -Consecutively now in its 5th. Bloom season, Asia’s largest tulip garden situated at the foothills of Zabarwan hills, a breath taking scenic view, the Tulip Garden was thrown open formally for tourists and local people from today by Minister of State for Floriculture and Horticulture, Javaid Ahmed Dar.
The District Development Commissioner, Srinagar M.A.Kakroo, Floriculture Director, Dr. Sarwar Naqash a number of civil and police officers and media persons were present on the occasion.
The Minister visited all the six terraces of the Garden beautifully laid under the Zabarwan hills.
Later, interacting with the media persons on the occasion, Javaid Ahmed Dar said that this year two more terraces have been added to the garden besides expanding its width. As of now, he said it is the biggest garden among all the gardens developed and maintained by the Floriculture department. He said during current bloom season about 15 Lakh tulip flowers of different varieties and colours spread over an area of about 8 hectares, will be in bloom in 6 terraced gardens.
The Minister informed the media that the main purpose of creating this new tourist destination is to pre-pone and boost tourism in the valley and in this endeavour department of Floriculture has succeeded as is evident today by the rush of visitors to the Tulip Garden and other gardens of the valley. Pre-ponement of tourist season by about a month has shown its positive spiral effect on other allied sectors like handicrafts, hotel industry, transport, photography, houseboat industry etc, Javaid said.
Besides the purpose of the garden, he added, is to create employment opportunities and promote commercial floriculture in the valley which has a huge and ever expanding potential. Commercial Floriculture Division (Model Floriculture Centre) has also been established in the garden.The MOS said towards creation of employment opportunities, the entry ticketing system, food point, photography in this garden have been outsourced and presently about 150 labourers are earning their livelihood from this garden.
On this occasion, the Director Floriculture, Dr. Naqash informed that the department has earned revenue of Rs.29.86 lakh till 2010.
He said the garden will remain open on all the days of the week between 9 am to 7 pm for the visitors. He also cautioned that visitors should not bring any non-biodegradable items inside the garden to keep the garden environment neat and clean.