Blooming scope

Ranchi, May 6: Stunning orchids will pave the floral way to lucrative livelihoods in Jharkhand if plans mooted by Jharkhand State Horticulture Mission (JSHM) succeed in the near future.

The JSHM, set up under the mandate of National Horticulture Mission (NHM), is in the process of setting up a model hi-tech dendrobium hybrid farm at a Namkum-based block nursery.

Established by Swedish botanist Olof Swartz in 1799, dendrobium is a huge genus of orchids. Today, it contains about 1,200 species.

“Dendrobium, despite being one of the most popular species, hasn’t been grown in Jharkhand so far. We aim to set up a hybrid farm and train prospective orchid growers. Orchids, after all, are one of India’s most important floriculture produce, and we want Jharkhand to contribute to it,” state mission director Prabhakar Singh told The Telegraph.

JSHM has invited expressions of interest (EOIs) from reputed organisations with expertise in the field to set up the farm.

The bid documents to respond to the EOIs may be purchased till May 18, on which date the technical bids shall be opened.

The prospective players need to establish and produce dendrobium under protected cultivation and provide training and marketing support for local growers in Jharkhand to make the project commercially viable. Besides these, the agency needs to establish a post-harvest technological support system to market the blooms in India and abroad.

Notably, dendrobium is an important foreign exchange earner because of its long lasting blooms in myriad colours and erect, elegant stems.

Singh said a corpus of around Rs 1.5 crore to Rs 2 crore has been earmarked for the purpose under NHM.

He added that the present proposal envisaged setting up of the farm to serve as a nucleus of integrated activities in promoting mass high-quality production involving farmers, women and youth, followed by market development.

Sources said an earlier effort by the JSHM to rope in a private agency for the ambitious task proved futile. Only two bids were received, among which one got cancelled at the technical bidding stage. According to norms, single bids can’t be entertained for financial considerations and fresh EOIs have to be released.