Growth of Floriculture and its Role in Promoting Socio-Economic Status of Floriculturists of Panskura and Kolaghat Blocks, Purba Medinipur

Abstract

Floriculture has become a highly specialized and intensive form of agriculture in Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal.Two Blocks namely Panskura I and Kolaghat (Formerly Panskura II) have emerged as important flower growing region of the district. During the past few decades growth of floriculture in this region has assume national importance in terms of increase in production and variety, thus occupies a line share of the flower market of W.B. and India as well. This has a tremendous bearing on the socio economy of the region and has opened a new avenue towards economic prosperity of the region. The present paper deals basically with the pattern of growth of floriculture in this region since 1990 and tries to assess its economic impact on education, use of consumer’s goods ,power of access to basic facilities etc. among the floriculturist .It explores the Block level species wise time series production data of the flowers and analyses the electrification, irrigation, transport facilities of the floriculturists .Finally the study reveals that per capita income has increased by 215.67 percentage in respect to 1990 year. It also emphasizes that though floriculture has immense potentialities for economic prosperity of the region but problems like lack of cold storage, market facilities, sufficient road, transport facility etc. are the major hindrances in floricultural activities.