Kashmir tulip garden is not Asia’s largest

Haroon Mirani

Srinagar, March 29, 2008:

Tulip Garden in Srinagar             Javed Dar

The tulip garden in Indian administered Kashmir inaugurated Saturday by Indian Congress President Sonia Gandhi is not Asia’s largest as authorities claim.

Gandhi, who is considered to be the most influential women in India, was made to inaugurate the Tulip garden claiming it to be Asia’s largest tulip garden, although the garden is not the largest in the Asia.

The tulip garden spread over an area of 5 hectares and earlier known as Siraj Bagh has also been rechristened Indira Gandhi Tulip Garden.

Around 1.2 million tulips of 60 varieties have been grown in this garden this year.

However China has a much larger Tulip garden.

The Shanghai flower port in Nanhui district of eastern China boasts of 28 hectare Tulip Park, which is five times larger than the Tulip garden in Kashmir.

Kashmir’s Tulip garden is far from attaining the status of being Asia’s largest park, although it can be termed as South Asia’s largest such park.

The Tulip Park in China is complete with Dutch-style architecture with windmills and other attractions.

More than 3.2 million tulips of around 300 varieties are in bloom at the park as compared to Kashmir’s 1.2 million tulips of 60 varieties.

When it comes to world’s largest Tulip park, nothing beats famous Keukenhof Tulip Park of the Netherlands.

The 32-hectare park is the world's largest tulip garden.

Every year, from March to May, Keukenhof Park hosts a flower show with over seven million tulips in blossom.

Though the authorities here claim that the park will ultimately cover 50 acres of land, but that is couple of years into the future.

The authorities are unable to meet the needs of tulips bulbs.

Like in 2007 this year too authorities had to import majority of tulip needed for the park.

A 900,000 tulip bulbs out of 1.2 million were imported from Holland in 2008.

Both the Dutch Tulip Park and Chinese Tulip Park attract 700,000 and 600,000 tourists annually.

Kashmir too is lured to this massive inflow and is getting encouraging results.

In 2007, 30,000 tourists visited the garden.

This year about 200,000 visitors are expected.

There has been another surprise as the Tulip garden was unexpectedly renamed from Siraj Bagh to Indira Gandhi Tulip Park.

The park was named Siraj Bagh after the person of same name who headed the Kashmir’s floriculture department during the regime of Dogra rulers.

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