Mahendra Singh Bist loves flowers, especially roses. On a small piece of land in his backyard in Joshimath, a small town in Chamoli district, Bist, a floriculturist, has grown roses of all hues and colours. With floriculture being identified as a thrust area in Uttarakhand, Bist is hoping to make fast bucks.
The hill resort of Joshimath is not very far from the Valley of Flowers, a world heritage site in the Garhwal Himalayas. This is perhaps one reason why both the areas, which fall under the Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, have developed a unique similarity of bedding exotic flowers.
Situated at a height of 7,000 feet above sea level, Joshimath is the place where all families of roses are cultivated because of favourable climatic conditions. The state government is now all set to develop this flower bed at Joshimath, the wintry sojourn of the Badrinath shrine. This move will also open up newer opportunities of entrepreneurships for the locals who are mostly tribal farmers growing vegetables and apples.
According to a survey conducted by the state-run Centre for Aromatic Plants (CAP) in Dehradun,roses were found to be grown aplenty in every nook and corner here.
For boosting the floriculture business, the state government has planned to rope in private companies to give fresh impetus to the production of various flowers. An investment of Rs 200 crore is expected in the floriculture sector, said top officials.
The state government has signed an MOU with Indo Dutch Technologies Pvt Ltd for the development of special infrastructure facilities and floriculture planting material. This will foster the promotion of export quality flowers from the state.
With the spread of commercial floriculture activity in India, many nurseries have come up in the market with planting material of different floriculture crops. But the available planting material is not genuine, is infected and of inferior quality.
Apart from this most small growers due to their scale of operations did not have access to the new improved varieties, which were imported to the country in recent years.
It’s clear that the unavailability of good quality planting material has been the major roadblock in floriculture promotion until now.
