Thanks to the initiative of the horticulture department, Vizag has broken fresh ground in exports of flowers to Delhi, Kolkata and Hyderabad.
A sustained campaign by the department in promoting floriculture over the past one year has paid off with many first-generation farmers and entrepreneurs taking to cultivation of flowers, the art of ikebana and exports.
With flowers now blossoming locally, local florists hardly need to source them from Bangalore any more. Earlier, they used to bring in nearly 1500-2000 flowers per day from Bangalore.
The drive by the horticulture department involved offering low-cost poly houses technology with a subsidy component of Rs 1.80 lakh a unit for cultivating flowers in controlled conditions and sponsoring farmers for training in the growing of flower at Bangalore.
