IEP Chandigarh, October 6
The Agriculture and Farmer Welfare Animal Husbandry and Dairying Fisheries, Sh. JP Dalal has visited European countries with a delegation to gain new technical knowledge in the field of horticulture and agriculture. He visited the Aalsmeer Flora Market in Holland and observed the online auction process of flowers being conducted there on an everyday basis. Inspired by this market, he said that a modern level global flower market will be made on the pattern of Holland’s Aalsmeer Flora Market in Gurugram, Haryana. Flowers from this market will be exported abroad. This will increase the income of flower growing farmers of NCR including Haryana. Additional Chief Secretary, Agriculture & Farmers Welfare Department, Smt. Sumita Misra is also accompanying him on Holland tour.
He said that about 44 million flowers are coming from outside in this market every day and 30 percent of the auctions are being attended by local auction participants and 70 percent of the auctions are being attended by people from other countries. In this process, the auction of all flowers is being done automatically and electronically under Dutch system.
The Agriculture Minister said that after the bidding, the successful bidder makes the payment online before taking delivery of the product. There is a large level air-conditioned hall for the care and maintenance of flowers, in which the temperature is maintained at 9 to 12 degrees. The market has two big levels which have a 10 feet width gallery.
He said that this market was established in 1962 and now it has been upgraded from time to time. The total area of the hall is 250 times bigger than the football field in size. The annual turnover of this flower trade market is about Rs. 30,000 crores and more than 5000 flower growers and suppliers are associated with it.
The Agriculture Minister said that a better platform can be provided to the people by creating such flower markets in Haryana including Delhi-NCR. For this, the team that went abroad with the Agriculture Minister interacted with the traders in the market in detail. He said that to improve the economic condition of the farmers on the lines of Holland’s flower market, a huge flower market will be built in Gurugram on the basis of this technology. Flowers will be exported abroad from this market and flower growing farmers of Haryana including NCR will get benefit.
