Tuesday, March 5, 2013

B(l)ooming flowery business

Himachal Pradesh is all set to compete with Kashmir in floriculture as it will be supplying blooms for the Capital city during the Commonwealth Games; it’s a multi-million business contract. But will the flower-growers be fortunate enough to live such lucrative days in the future as well? Questions Swati Sharma

The beautiful hills of Himachal Pradesh (HP), where they say the gods reside, is profusely smelling of the sweet scent of Lilies these days. In fact, it’s not just Lilies, several other varieties of flowers too are in full bloom spreading the elation all around. Raison d’être: The state is all set to allure the guests with its exquisite range of flowers during the forthcoming Commonwealth Games (CWG) in New Delhi. While it has already been awarded orders worth over `310 million for the supply of flowers by CPWD Delhi, private procurement too is estimated to be at about `420 million during the Games. And it’s not only the flowers that are in demand, the farmers are also getting orders for flower-pots and loose flowers for the decoration of the stadiums during the mega event.

Boasting about the order to supply flowers to the Capital city, HP’s Horticulture Minister Narinder Bragta says, “The forthcoming event provides a great opportunity for our farmers to market these valuable and pure products to the participating players and officials.” According to him, flowers like Rose, Carnation and Chrysanthemum, et al, will be in great demand during the Games as Himachal is the only state where these flowers, particularly Chrysanthemum bloom in October, the month in which the Games will be played.

It’s not that hundreds of villagers in Himachal took to floriculture just because of the CWG, in fact the State’s love for floriculture dates back to 1992 when, for the first time, it started supplying flowers to other states. Though the work was initially confined to Solan and Kangra districts, where individual growers undertook cultivation of traditional flowers like Gladiolus, Carnation, it later got extended to exotic and new varieties including Lilium, Tulip, Liatris, Chrysanthemum, et al. And why not? While flowers from different agro-climatic zones can be made available all through the year by the State for the domestic market, export quality flowers too can be ensured by cultivation under controlled environment conditions of greenhouse. In fact, this is one reason why the area under commercial floriculture has steadily increased many folds from just 30 hectares in FY1993-94 to 681.86 hectares in FY2009-10 with major cultivating areas being located in Sirmaur, Kangra, Mandi, Solan, Shimla, Kullu & Bilaspur districts.

It is estimated that about 2,800 farmers are engaged in floriculture in the State at present producing a variety of flowers worth `428.2 million (FY2009-10). This has not only benefited the State economy, but has also transformed the lives of hundreds of villagers engaged in floriculture. For instance, Mahog, a village in Solan district, has transformed ever since farmers there took up floriculture. Today its residents have three-storeyed houses and their standard of living has drastically improved with over 200 greenhouses spread in and around the village. “I am very happy that the demand for Himachali flowers is increasing. I started with just 335 sq mt of land, but today I have more than 1,000 sq mt area under cultivation. We are vigourously pruning roses and carnations for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games and are very excited about it,” Nandi Ram, a farmer of the village who started cultivating flowers in 1998 tells B&E. In fact, one can easily figure out the level of success that these farmers have achieved from the fact that Nandi today earns over `3-4 million per annum by just selling flowers.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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