“Whether the flowers are sold in the market or not, they have to be picked and set aside every day, or else the weight of flowers will ruin the plants. This time, there is going to be a major loss,” said Ashutosh, who cultivates marigold and roses.

Ashutosh has been cultivating flowers for many years in Bhilwara, Rajasthan, which yields him a profit of 30-40 lakh annually. However, due to Coronavirus, marriages and other events are being called off so he has to throw his flowers away now. Ashutosh now has 60,000 roses and 20,000 marigold plants in his ten bighas.

“Bhilwara has been completely shut down. Weddings, functions, events that used to provide a good income, were already cancelled. Now I am left with unrequired roses and marigold flowers. The closure of the temples has also hit the sale of marigold. A few used to be supplied to malls and then even they were shut down, closing yet another avenue of a good income. Everything is closed,” said Ashutosh. He has just retained roses, but in a few days even these will also have to be thrown.

India exports flowers to many countries such as USA, Netherlands and England. According to the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), India had exported 19,726.57 metric tonnes of flowers, fetching Rs 571.38 crore.

The flower business, demand and people associated with it gape at the doom of Corona. Not only big businesses, farmers and flower sellers at the temples are also suffering due to it.

The marigold farmers gear themselves to earn a good income from Navratri festival and wedding season during March-April. Besides, there is around the year demand for flowers in temples and for various other programmes.

Ashutosh said: “We had planned the production in such a way that first there will be Navaratri and then the season of weddings. So now we have to pick flowers, within the lowest possible wages because the plants have to be kept alive. If it continues to be like this till April, there will be a loss of Rs 15-20 lakhs.”

In temples like Vaishno Devi (Jammu and Kashmir), Mahakaleshwar Temple (Ujjain), Siddhi Vinayak Temple (Mumbai) across the country, tonnes of flowers are offered every day and so the flowers business is also suffering due to the closure of temples.

Chandrakant Dwivedi, in-charge of the enquiry center at the Mahakaleshwar temple in Madhya Pradesh, said: “We have flowers filled lorries coming to the temple but from tomorrow the temple is closed, so all the local shops have also been closed. The temple will remain closed, at least, until March 31.”

Ravi Pal of Mainpuri district of Uttar Pradesh also cultivates marigold and supplies the flower to many cities like Agra, Mathura and Kanpur.

Ravi has also suffered a lot this time. “Towards the beginning of the month, people were ordering marigold flowers in quantities ranging from 50 kg to one quintal whereas today the demand has shrunk to 5-10 quintals. This season usually provides us the best income. So, we have kept with us the stock of flowers, however, there is no one buying. How many days can the flowers be kept? They would get spoiled in five or ten days and would then have to be thrown away.”

In the normal days, there is a good demand for flowers in the temples of Mathura-Vrindavan. But most of the temples have been closed now, even which remained open saw almost no devotee coming.

During Chaitra Navratri, temples across the country get full of devotees. This time, the Navratri festival begins from March 25, but Corona looms large on flower trade.

Ashutosh, who cultivates flowers in Bhilwara, said: “Even the big events in the country have been cancelled, or their dates have been extended for fear of Corona. These events also use a good a good number of flowers.”

According to the National Horticulture Board, about 2,153 thousand tonnes of flowers were produced in about 249 thousand hectares in the country in the year 2015-16. Tamil Nadu (20%), Karnataka (13.5%) and West Bengal (12.2%) are the major flower producing states in the country. Flower cultivation is also undertaken in states like Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand and Haryana. The flower market at Madurai in Tamil Nadu is one of the largest markets in the country. But here also the effect of Corona is visible. On March 22, the market remained closed for the first time in the last 50 years.

Here also, the market condition is bad. Dev Sant of KMKP flowers in Madurai said on the phone: “Everything is shut down here. We are suffering a lot.”

This is the season of world-famous tulips from Netherlands. But every day thousands of flowers are being destroyed. In the past one week, millions of roses, chrysanthemum and tulips were destroyed. Their exports have been completely stalled due to coronavirus.

In Uttar Pradesh, a number of events and weddings bookings with the event company, Balaji Events, in Lucknow had to be cancelled by manager Braj Bhushan Shukla. Braj Bhushan informed: “There was to be a marriage yesterday (March 20), this marriage was first scheduled for March 22, but due to curfew preparations were made to do it on 21. All preparations were made, there was even a big hotel booked in Lucknow, but then the district magistrate’s order came that the programme would have to be stopped. Then we talked to the girl people, what they could do but to stop the wedding.”

Braj Bhushan had many bookings for programmes before and after Holi but all had to be called off. “Although the boys and girls suffered a lot, but this has to be done for their as well as everyone’s good,” he admitted.