Floral business surges ahead of Valentine's Day in Bangalore - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

As the Valentine's Day approaches, flower exports soar in Bangalore city while specially designed Valentine's Day cards for gay and lesbian community are available in Patna city. Flower entrepreneurs in Bangalore are witnessing a steep rise in demand for roses ahead of St. Valentine's Day (February 14). The city alone has around 30 units of rose farms, which are exporting flowers to Europe, Singapore, Malaysia and Dubai. The cut flower industry in Bangalore has already exported flowers worth 1.2 crore rupees ( 258,425.77 dollars) ahead of Valentine's Day. The flower exports have soared by a 20-30 per cent this year in comparison to last year, on this occasion. Bangalore has over 130 hectares of floricultural land. Pune city comes second with more than 40 hectares and is also shipping flowers for the occasion. "Valentines is a good period for the Indian growers because in this particular period European countries can't grow much because of harsh winters and other climatic conditions. From December to February there is a very suitable climate particularly for Bangalore growers. So, most of the countries are dependent on our flowers," said P.J Raju, Director and Exporter, Classic Biotech, Bangalore. India's annual flower production stands about 1,000 tonnes and the country's floriculture industry has a share of 0.01 percent in the $40 billion international market. Meanwhile, in another unique initiative for the V-day, greeting cards especially designed for same-sex couples have been launched in the Indian market and are available in Patna city. A set of five-cards has been launched by Indian card manufacturer, Archies Ltd., for the gay and lesbian community to celebrate the day of love, after the Delhi high court passed an order in 2009 decriminalising homosexuality. "This year we have a good collection of Valentines Day cards ranging from 40 ($ 0.86) to 60 rupees ($ 1.29). This year our company Archies has launched new concept cards- the gay cards. We have put them on display and we are getting a good response from the customers. People are reading them and even buying them. The sale and demand for these cards is good. People are finding this as a unique concept," said Ankur Roy, shopkeeper Archies gallery in Patna. The cards are in great demand in metropolitan cities like Mumbai and Delhi.