Indian flower power is all set to colour the world. The UP Mandi Parishad, in collaboration with the Agricultural Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (Apeda) is finalising allotment rules for inviting bidders to partner in the growth of floriculture marketing through its state-of-the-art international flower auction centre-cum-integrated wholesaler market at sector 88 in Noida.
The flower mart, which will primarily act as a platform for flower growers and wholesalers, will also come as a boon to distributors, exporters, and all those associated with flowers such as floral designers, event planners, retail florists as well as interior decorators.
Spread across 8 acre on a 30 acre on the state highway, this project has been built at a cost of Rs 18 crore and would be having a total of 74 shops, which it will rent out on long lease basis. Working as a national market place, it would offer a wide range of floriculture products for traders and a platform for producers to realise the true price of their quality products.
Though similar flower marts do exist in Bangalore and Mumbai, this mart is slated to be the biggest among them all and the flower auction centre is based on the ?Dutch auction Clock? system. Armed with three cold storages, it also has the capacity of preserving around 4 lakh produce.
Speaking to FE Rajesh Kumar Singh, director Mandi Parishad said this kind of floral mart is the second of its kind in the country.
?The flower industry in India suffers immensely from logistical bottlenecks and inadequate post-harvest infrastructure. With flowers being easily perishable, the biggest problems that traders face is the lack of cold storage and display facilities. Transportation, too, to and from the train stations and airport, remains cumbersome. In order to increase the shelf life of flowers, the mandi is also tapping the backward linkages like providing safeguards like refrigerated vans and water trolleys to transport the flowers from the stations or airports in fresher environs and store them at the appropriate temperatures. The only way that they provide safeguards right now is to put up some temporary plastic shelters to protect the flowers. We are in talks with floriculturists from Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh for this,? he revealed.
Though India?s share in the global flower market is a miniscule 2% at present, the existence of large unexploited export potential is likely to serve as a growth engine for the floriculture sector.
The fact that the flower industry in Delhi alone accounts for business worth over Rs 100 crore annually, speaks volumes about the potential of the industry.