| - By Sandeep Chaudhury with inputs from Amita Sharma |
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| All of a sudden, someone had waved a magic wand, or so it seemed. And Delhi's Okhla industrial complex, home to prosaic business fairs and show of umpteen odd factory products, now turned refreshingly green - with flowers, groves et al, fountains, waterfalls, landscapes and you name it, all sprung up overnight! A bewitching fairyland, just off the crowded business hub of Nehru Place, as you looked from above the high flyover. Donning red, green and yellow turbans matching the multi colored flowers and plants in makeshift nurseries, farmers from many a state gave it all a festive look at the International Landscape & Gardening Expo [September 26-28, 2008]. Some moved in clusters and others talked among themselves or to a host of suppliers of wide range of inputs, Indian and foreign. |
| The show was part of a larger, now popular International Flora Expo series, organized by Media Today Group, a Delhi-based event management enterprise, and iFlora, an organization devoted to popularizing flowers and plants across the country. The Gardening and Landscape fair itself was the 3rd edition of its kind and the biggest since 2006. It's the way the industry, perhaps, has always wanted to showcase what it has been doing, now out in the public domain. The show is a response, too, to the requirements of modern living and global developments like new green building and so on. "This Expo has evolved into a platform for all," said MB Naqvi, Chief Coordinator of the Expo. "So many people have been working to make ornamental horticulture business a big thing in India. Here's a platform for them all purposefully to meet and interact among themselves as well as with global players." Already, flowers and floral products are being sent out of India to 150 countries - a welcome signal that commercial floriculture in the country is emerging into an attractive proposition for investors in recent times. Quite naturally, the Delhi Expo drew 26 international participants, direct and through local counterparts."The Expo owes its growing appeal to all the various participants," said Jafar Naqvi, President of iFlora. One major participant has been the states and the various agencies, central and state. As many as 20 states took part in the Expo to give the organizers well deserved encouragement. The states put in an impressive effort, showcasing specifically what they had to offer by way of floriculture development in various regions of the country. In their own way, states are important players; they set up parks and gardens in public places, decide on policies to ensure that the cities and towns do not turn into a concrete jungle and launch a host of other policies that can help boost floriculture and gardening. All together, the floriculture in India is blooming into a Rs.10,000- crore business prospect, according to serious players in the industry.Quite naturally, the trade visitors at the Expo swelled to a sizeable 55,000, organizers said. "It has been a truly world class experience," remarked Ms Sonali Kumar, Principal Secretary to Agriculture Production Department in Jammu & Kashmir government. Hopefully, that experience will stand her in good stead. For, Sonali Kumar's department has planned to step up efforts to revive commercial floriculture in a state that boasts of an unmatched Mughal tradition of gardens and lakes.Torn by violence and political turbulence over a prolonged period, J&K is now looking for investments to boost flori-tourism in the state. The state has just opened Asia's biggest Tulip Garden, as if to remind the world that tulips are related not just to Holland! According to Sonali Kumar, one area where investments are welcome is pre-and-post harvest management. Her government is also keen on developing production units for planting material and encouraging production of rare and exotic varieties not grown outside the state. |
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| Shalimar Garden in Kashmir and the landscaping around it bring back memories of the Mughal era. Not just Kashmir, gardens, orchards and impressive landscapes have indeed been a glorious part of ageold tradition and culture in all of India. A well-produced Expo catalogue documents how the Mahabharata talks of palaces that were a landscaping marvel, what with the illusion of water over land and land over water! The Mughals continued the tradition of landscaping - you see it in Taj Mahal, that symbol of eternal love, in Agra. Then, the British left behind other wonders like the Mughal Garden inside Rashtrapati Bhavan and more of them elsewhere at the Lutyen's Bungalow Zone in the capital. To them all, of course, the country's landscape industry has since added its own architectural creations in the modern period. At the Expo, important participants put on display several products of value to gardening and landscape. The participants included Jain Irrigation, Toro Company, Andreas Stihl, Automat Industries, Eon Interior Products, Hybiscus Nature's Space, Madhu Irri-Tech, New Era Interior, Tree Transplanters and Wise Center Precision Appliances. Tuflex India, Rise n' Shine, KF Bioplants, Saveer Biotech, Proton Electricals, Ratnagiri Impex and Peak Traders were the other exhibitors who stole the show. On display were a wide range of goods, equipment and appliances - from garden machinery of all kinds, the brush cutter, the trimmer, power tiller and lawn mower suited to different locations, tools backed by Rotary technology and micro-irrigation systems to attractive lighting equipment and innovative products for landscape, golf courses, sports fields, swimming pools, turfs, outdoor furniture, tissue culture plants, seeds, specialty fertilizers and pots. An impressive feature of the Expo was the active participation of nurserymen's associations from several states. In particular, the West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh pavilions donned a bridal look and attracted surging crowds all three days of the Delhi fair. The organizers plan to take their green agenda one big step forward to new pastures in future. "We want to go greener still," said Naqvi of his plans to take the event to South India next year. The 2009 Landscape & Gardening Expo will be held in Hyderabad [Oct 2-4] Tailpiece: Visiting a gardening or flower show, one thought was irresistible. In a flash, you remembered Pandit Nehru. He needed no excuse to visit a garden or grace a flower show. But not many would remember how Nehru quietly left his Teen Murti residence on an eventful day in December 1961 to keep a date with Delhi's Pusa Gardens! He did so during tension-filled hours as the country's warships were ordered to move and free Goa from centuries of Portuguese colonial rule. To Nehru, it was a happy Pusa date and a welcome get-away of sorts from nagging worries of state. It was Dr MS Swaminathan, the country's green revolution scientist, who recounted the Pusa visit at the 2007 Expo. Asked about it on a later occasion, Panditji himself gave nothing away - he just smiled, as did the red rose on the Nehru jacket. Just how many politicians of today would want to follow Nehru's footsteps into gardens, orchards and parks ? |
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