J&K: Over 4.40 lakh people visited Srinagar’s tulip garden, highest since 2007

Srinagar, Apr 24 (PTI) A record 4.46 lakh visitors visited Asia’s largest tulip garden, ensconced between the Dal Lake and the Zabarwan Hills here, which was closed for public on Wednesday after remaining open for over a month, officials said.

“This year the garden remained open for 33 days and saw a footfall of 4.46,154 visitors,” Floriculture Officer of the garden, Javeed Masood, told PTI.

This is the highest footfall ever recorded in the garden since its inception in 2007.

The Indira Gandhi Memorial Tulip Garden, earlier known as Siraj Bagh, was opened for the public on March 23 this year.

Among the visitors, 3,204 were foreigners, 3,35,636 domestic tourists and 1,07,314 locals, Masood said.

He said the garden saw the highest footfall on April 11, a day after Eid-ul-Fitr when a total of 30,659 people visited the garden. The locals, 18,888, were the bulk of the visitors that day.

More than 3.65 lakh visitors, both domestic and foreign, visited the garden last year, while it witnessed a footfall of 3.60 lakh people in 2022.

This year, the floriculture department added five new varieties of tulips to the existing 68. It also increased the area of the tulip garden by adding another two lakh bulbs.

A record 17 lakh tulip bulbs were planted in the garden spread over 55 hectares.