A large Ganesh idol made up of fruits and vegetables, including lemon and Jujube, a life-size attractive model wearing a dark maroon gown laced with fascinating flowers, a bust of Swami Vivekananda made up of millets, giant musical instruments prepared using countless flowers, vegetable carvings and so on… these are among the special attractions at the Flower and Fruit Exhibition being held after 15 years by the District Horticulture Department on its office premises near Ambedkar Circle here.
The event is attracting a large crowd, primarily children who are enjoying the festival of flowers and fruits with their friends and families.
As against the attendance during the day, there is a large crowd in the evening till close to 10 p.m. enjoying the show of flowers and fruits.
The three-day event, which will end on Friday, is being held not only to provide recreational facility to the locals here but also to promote government schemes. “It was a long pending demand of the people here to host such an event which is being done in several districts. But for some reasons, we could not organise it. However, this time, we decided to organise it without fail to coincide with the ongoing Siddeshwara Jatra which is a major event in the district,” said Deputy Director, Horticulture Department, Santosh Inamdar.
Speaking to The Hindu, he said that the decision was taken just about a fortnight ago and preparations were made for the event.
“Since the decision was taken late, we could not organise the event on a grand scale. However, since we wanted to resume the event that was stopped years ago, we decided to do it on a smaller scale. We thought that it could be arranged on a grander scale from the next year,” he said.
Mr. Inamdar said that ideally, the preparations should start at least two months in advance where flowers and grass could be grown locally.
“Cultivation of flowers and grass saves a lot of money against purchasing flowers from the market. This time, we used government funds of around ₹ 5 lakh and also some donations of around ₹ 2 lakh from local businessmen,” he said.
