New Delhi: Four thousand green and black ophiopogon, 3,000 cuphea chinensis, 3,000 iresine herbstii, and 2,500 asparagus sprengeri will decorate the Rashtrapati Bhavan premises when Narendra Modi takes oath for his third term as Prime Minister. And the Rashtrapati Bhavan staff can’t fulfil this huge demand alone. A twenty-year-old nursery is filling this beauty gap.
The Vedvan Nursery in Delhi’s Siraspur handles the decoration for most of the government events—from Republic Day celebrations to the G20 summit.
The exterior decoration of the Rashtrapati Bhavan is “being done by the Central Public Works Department, while all interior decoration responsibilities have been taken up by the Bhavan staff,” said a senior officer posted at the Rashtrapati Bhavan’s horticulture department, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“Flowers and plants for the forecourt and stage also are being sourced directly from the gardens of Rashtrapati Bhavan. We have primarily used roses and lilies for this purpose,” he added.
Meanwhile, Rajiv Rana, the owner of Vedvan Nursery, and his crew have been tasked with decorating the roads leading to the Rashtrapati Bhavan, creating flower rangolis and floral tableaux. They have been at work using marigold garlands since 4 am on Sunday morning. Rajiv Rana and his team are up against a tight deadline and will have to exit by 3pm. The tender was assigned on 3 June, which gave the team just five days to fulfil the order. It’s estimated to cost Rs 2.97 lakh.
“We are handling the decorations for the PM’s oath-taking ceremony. We are supplying all the flowers and plants needed for the event,” said Rana, 45.
Rana’s nursery has fulfilled commitments for events held at the Vigyan Bhavan, Kartavya Path, Parliament and Pragati Maidan in the past.
For any event, their focus is on ensuring decoration using diverse indoor plants. There is a significant demand for flowers such as roses, lilies, dahlias, and chrysanthemums, along with plants such as cacti, aglaonema, areca palms, aracaena ‘Song of India’, araucaria cookie, and more.
However, fulfilling the demand is a hectic job. For items not available in Delhi, Rana seeks assistance from nurseries and local markets in states such as Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Most decorative plants are being sourced from Pune for today’s ceremony. Marigold and aster crossandra have been sourced from Andhra Pradesh and aglaonema from Pune.
Apart from Vedvan, Priya Nursery located in Pragati Maidan, and Samadhiya Nursery in Paschim Vihar, are also prominent vendors that supply and undertake decoration work for government programmes.
Also read: Children selling flowers on the street aren’t atmanirbhar. They are poor and not in school
How it works
Nurseries or companies seeking to bid for Government of India tenders must first register with the CPWD. The department categorises these entities based on the tender values. Class I includes major players with tender values exceeding Rs 1.5 crore, while Class II encompasses those with amounts up to Rs 80 lakh.
“Small companies are limited to lower categories and can’t enter Class I, while larger companies have the flexibility to bid in smaller categories,” said a senior official of CPWD on the condition of anonymity.
About 100 companies are currently registered in the Class I category.
For the swearing-in ceremony, the Under Secretary (President’s Gardens), Rashtrapati Bhavan invited tenders for supplying decorative indoor and ornamental plants on 27 May. It was mandatory to submit bids online through the Central Public Procurement Portal.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)