The doors of the India Gandhi Memorial Tulip Garden, billed as Asia’s largest tulip garden, in Jammu and Kashmir’s Srinagar are now open to the public. It is expected that as many as 17 lakh tulip flowers will be on full display at this year’s much-awaited tulip festival. Every year hundreds of thousands of domestic and foreign tourists visit the sought-after tulip festival held in the valleys of the impressive Zabarwan Hills.
In a bid to provide a better experience to the visitors, the authorities have allotted 50 cents of land more for parking. This year five varieties of tulips were added, bringing the total number of tulip varieties on display to 73. Besides the carpet of tulip flowers, the visitors can also enjoy the beauty of daffodils and hyacinth flowers. As the blooming of the tulip flowers would last only for 15 to 20 days due to the temperature change, the tulip garden is kept open for the general public only for a month every year.
The Indira Gandhi Memorial Tulip Garden, which is spread across 30 hectares (74 acres) of land, was earlier known as the Model Floriculture Center. It is also known as ‘Siraj Bagh’. The garden was opened to the public for the first time in 2008 in a bid to encourage floriculture and boost tourism in the Kashmir valley. Nearly 17 lakh tulip bulbs of different hues were brought from the Keukenhof tulip garden in Amsterdam Netherlands. Besides tulips, 46 varieties of flowers such as hyacinth, daffodil and ranunculus, which were also flown in from Amsterdam, could be spotted at the tulip garden in Srinagar. The Tulip Festival is a yearly event conducted by the Jammu and Kashmir governments to give a much-needed fillip to its tourism sector.
A record number of 3.65 lakh tourists, including 3,000 foreigners, visited the garden last year. The entrance fee is Rs 75 for adults and Rs 30 for children, and the garden will be open from 9 am to 7 pm.
