00:00Nestled between the Dal Lake and the Zabava Hills, Asia's largest tulip garden opened
00:19for the public on March 26, marking the beginning of the tourism season in the Kashmir Valley.
00:26The Indira Gandhi Memorial Tulip Garden was set up by Ghulam Nabi Azad and the then Chief
00:32Minister of the erstwhile state in 2007.
00:36Formerly known as Siraj Bagh, the garden is open to the public as tulips of different
00:42colours are in bloom.
00:44The Floriculture Department plants tulip bulbs in a phased manner so that the flowers remain
00:50in bloom for a month or more.
00:52Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah conducted the official opening ceremony.
00:58The department has added two new varieties of tulips to the garden this year.
01:03Other spring flowers such as hyacinths, daffodils, muskery and cyclamens will also be on display.
01:11About 17 lakh tulip bulbs have been planted in the garden that spreads over 55 hectares.
01:18The garden started on a small scale with 50,000 tulip bulbs imported from the Netherlands.
01:24It instantly gained popularity among tourists and has been steadily growing each year, both
01:30in terms of the number of visitors and the tulip that bloom.
01:35More than 4.65 lakh visitors, both domestic and foreign, visited the garden last year,
01:41while the footfall in 2023 was 3.65 lakh.
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