Srinagar: Counted in the wonders of the Valley, Kashmir’s tulip garden has become the first attraction of spring season for tourists across the globe after the Jammu and Kashmir government opened it for all. Competing tulip gardens of Holland and the Netherlands, Kashmir Tulip Garden is considered in the first three tulip gardens of the world.
Inaugurated in 2007 this garden with every passing year had won the hearts of nature lovers across the globe. This year, the garden will 1.5 million tulips blooming with 68 varieties of different beautiful colours to welcome the tourists.
Director Tourism Kashmir GN Itoo said “it is the main attraction for tourists who visit Kashmir. Without visiting tulip garden they think their tour is incomplete. Besides, it has preponed the tourist season of Kashmir about one month.”
He added, from last one month people were enquiring about the opening dates of the garden, we are going for mega tulip festival in coming days and some big celebrities will participate.”
Tulip Garden in Srinagar is the largest tulip garden in Asia. This garden is spread over an area of about 30 hectares. Situated beneath the Zabarwan mountains on the banks of Dal Lake, the garden gets ready after months of hard work of hundreds of gardeners and supervisors. All 12 months of the year they take care of this garden to produce the best possible varieties imported from holland.
Garden In-Charge Inaam Ahmad said ” we work hard round the year to give best to tourist other visitors who come when it’s in bloom. This time we have 1.5 million tulips here with 68 varieties, we have added some other flowers also here to make it more attractive.”
Adding he said, “many filmmakers have approached us to shoot here films, we welcome them. We expect in this season around 4 lakh visitors will visit this garden and it will be a big boost to Kashmir tourism.”
Lakhs of tourists visit this garden every year but due to pandemic, the last three years were very disappointing as the government was forced to close the gardens just in a weeks’ time and it occurred around 100 crore losses to Kashmir tourism sector. But this year’s expectations are high first day response was overwhelming.
Maximum tourist has planned their visit to Kashmir keeping in view the opening date of tulip garden while many postponed thief departures after they heard it’s being opened on 23rd March.
Rashmi Singh tourist said ” I had been coming here for three years for this but pandemic didn’t stop me visiting this garden this time am lucky, it’s like dream coming true, I remember Amitab Bachan and Rekha song in tulips I too want to take pictures in those poses” she added why people waste money and go abroad when our own country has this great garden, I just love this”
This time to make this garden more attractive and comfortable, an open-air cafeteria is made in the garden, which is main attraction for the visiting tourists.
Hitesh Sharma tourist said ” we have planned our tour according the opening date to tulip garden we came to know through news one week ago it’s being thrown open for tourist from 23rd March we booked our flight accordingly, am here with my family and after visiting here I realised I did no mistake of coming here it’s worth visiting, I request all that’s once they should visit here”
Last year, despite the Covid restrictions, more than 2.25 lakh tourists had visited the Tulip Garden, but this included only 80,000 tourists rest were mostly locals.
The Tulip Garden in Srinagar marks the beginning of the tourist season in the valley. The Tulip Garden is expected to double the number of tourists this year, which will break all previous records of tourist footfall in Kashmir.
Last year, pictures of this tulip garden were also posted on Twitter by Prime Minister Narinder Modi, after the post, the attraction of this garden was further increased.
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