A stick of scarlet lilies. Picture by Biplab Basak

Jalpaiguri, March 21: After sugary-shrub Stevia, it is the Australian lily. The district agricultural department has come up with varieties of this flower among the local floriculturists, as they have a good market in India and overseas.

The department has, so far, imported around 1,000 bulbs of the variety and planted them in the department?s farm at Mohitnagar, on the outskirts of Jalpaiguri. Amazing results have been reached and fields are alight with white, red and saffron blossoms.

?The flower has a steady market and cultivators will find their cash registers ringing,? claimed officials of the department.

With the state projecting the north Bengal districts, especially the sub-Himalayan region, as an ideal destination for floriculture, the cultivation of lilies, that too a foreign variety, has made cultivators believe that such economically viable plants can be grown in these climes.

?The climate is congenial for its cultivation. Also, these bulbs multiply every year and every stick fetches around Rs 6 in the wholesale market,? said Gautam Roy, an official attached to the farm and the project.

According to Roy, the bulbs were imported last October, after which they were sown on an experimental basis.

?The fields show the result,? Roy beamed.

Enthused by its success, the department has decided to promote the flower in a big way to attract more cultivators and private funds.