Bangalore to gear up for rose export to mark Valentine's Day

Bangalore, Feb 12 (UNI) Come Valentine's Day, roses are in full bloom in the garden city's misty environs yielding cash strapped farmer with good returns.

For this Valentine's Day too, the floriculturists are having a field day as their crop would be sent to various countries as is done every year.

Over 350 tonnes of rose, worth US Dollars eight million had already been despatched through chartered flights from Bangalore to various countries in Asia, Europe, West Asia UK and Singapore to meet the demand for the festival of love.

The flowers were in great demand that they could not send the loads to Portugal because of the shortfall. ''We are running short of supply to meet both the domestic and export demand for the Bangalore roses for the Valentine's Day,'' said Ramakrishna Karturi, Managing Director of Karturi Floriculture.

Besides this, many BPO and IT companies have ordered roses for the Valentine's Day. The IT growth has also complemented the demand for roses in domestic market.

''IT has brought in a big boom. This time, around 20 BPOs have allowed us to set up flower shops in their premises. We have also brought in a toll free number concept of booking flower orders not only for delivery in India but anywhere in the world. This is becoming highly popular,'' Karturi said adding that high profile weddings including that of Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai had created lot of space for roses thereby increasing domestic market consumption.

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