Flowers one of the most essential items for celebrating Tihar festival has run out of stock in the district. Though flowers are cultivated commercially there is shortage of flowers.

Sitaram Chowdhury, a trader of flowers and garlands in Tikapur, said that the flowers had run out the day before Tihar. The demand of customers could not be met, many people returned empty handed.

Traders say that during Tihar, flower garlands are sold out in the market within two days of the beginning of the five-day festival. Samira Dhami of Janaki rural municipality-4 came to Tikapur market on Wednesday to buy garlands but returned empty-handed.

Senior citizen Dhauli Neupane says that if flowers were planted at home, there would be no shortage of flowers and garlands today. “During our time, there were flowers around the house, we never had to look for flowers to buy them”, he says.

Due to scarcity of real flowers in the market, the business of plastic garlands has also improved. Businessman Shiv Chaudhary said that many people came to buy plastic garlands after not getting flower garlands.