Fayaz Bukhari
Beeline at Tulip Garden in Srinagar in the foothills of Zabarwan mountains overlooking Dal lake. Tourists from across the country and locals, capture every moment of their visit to the garden that has become new tourist attraction in spring.
Over one million tulips of 102 varieties spread over 30 hectares are in full bloom these days in the Tulip garden in Kashmir. It is a breath-taking view in the backdrop of Zabarwan hills that takes people by surprise once one enters the garden.
A stroll on the terraced Tulip Garden greets one with velvety Tulips in White, Yellow, Red, Purple, Orange and Pink which appear splashed on the ground like paint on a canvas.
The visitors don’t want to miss any tulip row or terrace. They click pictures and capture videos as the view is rarest of rare in this part of the world.
The Garden is on par with the Holland’s Keukenhof. Nowhere in Asia is such a big Garden which has a collection of 102 varieties of Tulips in one place.
The Tulip garden has a great appeal to attract visitors. This season it has given new lease of life to the Tourism sector of the valley in the aftermath of execution of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru in early February this year.
The hanging of Guru led to fleeing of tourists from Kashmir in panic and those who had planned their trip cancelled their visit. Kashmir’s tourism sector was almost grounded in the aftermath of execution of Guru.
The fragile tourism industry became first causality after Guru’s execution. As curfew was imposed tourists who were holidaying in Srinagar immediately fled in panic and it sent a disturbing message.
Mohammad Yasin Tuman, Managing Director of Mascot Travels, was apprehensive about this year’s tourism prospects. He said that in March they had major cancellations due to curfews and strikes. “We thought it will give a tourism sector a big jolt this year but of late in April tourist arrivals have started picking up but it is just 30 per cent what we had last year.”
Merajudin Shangloo, owner of Shangloo Travels, one of the major stake holders in tourism sector in Kashmir said that this year he was expecting more tourists after two years of relative calm in Kashmir but after the hanging of Guru, tourism suffered a jolt.
Shangloo said that tourism as compared to last month has picked up but it is still below 50 per cent of what was last year. He said that most of the major hotels have less than 30 per cent occupancy at this time of the year. “What you see in Kashmir these days is low budget tourists and high budget tourists are still scared”, he added.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was also thrilled with renewed tourist arrivals in Kashmir in the aftermath of strife that followed Guru’s execution. He said: “After everything we’ve been through since 9th of Feb, if tourists are returning to valley I have every reason to be thrilled. A friend called to complain that flights to Srinagar and hotels in Srinagar were too expensive. While I sympathised with him, I’m thrilled.”
According to figures of the department of tourism so far 1.7 lakh tourists visited Kashmir valley this year. A tourism official said that tourist rush is picking up and between 2500-3000 tourists visit Kashmir daily for past over a week.
As many as 32 flights operate daily from Srinagar airport these days to fly tourists in and out of the Valley.
Kashmir Valley witnessed a boom in tourism in the last two years. Around 13.5 lakh tourist visited Kashmir last year after two years of peaceful summer following summer unrest for three consecutive years in 2008, 2009 and 2010. This yearthe Tourism department is expecting 14.5 lakh visitors to Kashmir valley.
This year the industry was heading for big boom given the peaceful situation in the valley for the last two years. But Guru’s execution led to the massive cancellations of tourists in February and March this year. After the return of peace for last few weeks tourist arrivals have increased and Tulip garden has been major attraction and tourist puller at a time when there was scare all around.
Amit Jain, a tourist from Mumbai said that he was apprehensive about visiting Kashmir. But love for Tulips brought him to Kashmir. “My relatives and friends were against my visit to Kashmir at this time but Tulips brought me here. Last year I saw on TV Tulip bloom and decided to visit here. I made up my mind and came here. I don’t see any trouble here”, he said.
Tulip garden has become new attraction for Film makers. They want to include the garden in their film for adding colour to it.
Some sequences of Kannada film Sweety were shot here this week. Featuring actress Radhika Kumaraswamy this is the first film to be shot during this year’s Tulip season.
“Our film is ready, we were only waiting for the Tulip flowers for the love song,” Movie Director Vijayalakshmi Singh said. The actress Radhika said: “The people of the valley are very nice, loved the day in tulip garden.”
Javed Shah, the project Manager Tulip Garden says that when the garden was opened in the last week of March the response was moderate as there were no tourists around. “Now we are in the third week and response is overwhelming. Around 1.2 lakh people visited the garden so far in first three weeks and it is increasing. We had a record number of over 10, 000 visitors on Sunday April 14. Earlier mostly locals visited the garden and now majority of the visitors are tourists.”
Shah has been in-charge of the famed tulip garden for 7 years now. He said that tulips appeal tourists and it has opened a new chapter in tourism sector of Kashmir. “There was no major attraction in spring for tourists but this garden has filled the vacuum. It has become major attraction in the months that was traditionally seen as lean period in tourism sector of Kashmir”, he adds.
Shah says that tulips have a great potential to pull in lakhs of tourists in spring. “But for this we need to upgrade the infra-structure of the garden and increase the life of tulips by using modern technology”, says Shah.
“Presently we have tulip season for 28 days and we are trying to extend upto 42 days. For this we have submitted Rs 10 Crore project to the government that will increase the life of tulips”, says Shah.
Shah said that once the project is through we will get fogging system with rain guns for the tulip garden. “This will create an artificial fog around tulip beds and rain guns will provide them shower whenever we feel they need it. It will lower down temperature around tulips that will increase their life”, he added.
“The project will change the harvesting of tulip bulbs from manual to mechanical as well. The manual harvesting takes over two months and the mechanical harvesting will be done in just 10 days. The Tulip bulbs face dehydration and splitting that ultimately affects the size of the bulb and tulip production and quality. The temperature at the time of harvesting should be between 17-23 degree Celsius, while presently we have to harvest it in summer when temperature is around 35 degree Celsius. The hot summer temperature is not feasible for the bulbs and they should be harvested immediately after the bloom if we have to maintain quality of tulips and bulbs”, says Javed Shah.
Shah says that the department has submitted a project that costs around Rs 8-9 core for storage of Tulip bulbs. “Our storage is still traditional and we need to import post-harvest technology from Netherlands for temperature and air management at the storage site that will help in improvement of quality of bulbs. Once this facility is available we don’t need to import bulbs for Netherlands after 2 years”, he adds.
Shah says that other countries import tulip bulbs from Netherlands every year as they are high quality bulbs. “We also imported 3.24 lakh bulbs comprising 24 new varieties this year. We have mostly planted them near the entrance and you can see the difference in flower quality. It is better if we import fresh bulbs for entire garden every year if we have to increase its appeal”, he adds.
The Tulip garden within 6 years has achieved much fame across the country. In 2006 it was part of a Model Floriculture Centre known as Siraj Bagh and tulip cultivation was on less than one acre of land. The then Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad floated the idea of changing Siraj Bagh into Tulip garden to make it a tourist attraction.
In 2007 work on the project was started in a big way with Azad himself monitoring it. One of the employees of the Tulip Garden, Farooq Ahmad said that Chief Minister was keen to see the project through as quickly as possible. “He visited the Garden around 100 times that year to ensure that it is completed in time”, he adds.
On March 29, 2008, the United Progressive Alliance chairperson, Sonia Gandhi inaugurated the garden and at that time the garden was spread on 2 hectares. Now it is spread over 30 hectares and the department has plans to add 14 hectares under Tulip cultivation.
For past 5 years Tulip Garden didn’t get much attention of the government as it got during Azad’s time. But the management of the Tulip garden worked over time with limited resources and brought more hectares of land under tulip cultivation in the garden.
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