Targeting the upcoming Tihar and Chhath festivals, Triyuga Municipality has requested to prioritize local products and stop the use of imported plastic materials.
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Goma Roka of Babri, Triyuga Municipality-10, Udayapur, who has been cultivating flowers for Tihar every year, has no flower buds in her flower garden this year, only stems. She had set aside 10 ropanis of land for flower cultivation and had thought that she would produce a good crop of flowers this year. But the results were exactly the opposite.
She said that the flower plants she planted had only stems. 'Last year, I sold flowers worth 60,000,' she said, 'but this year, no flowers bloomed in everyone's garden. Only stems remained.'
The demand for centipede flowers is now higher than the plastic flowers available in the market. But the flower plants planted by most farmers in Udayapur did not bloom this year. Nanisa Magrati of Bokse, Triyuga Municipality-10, who came to the market to buy centipede flowers, said that she had decided to settle for plastic flowers this time. After searching the market in the afternoon, she could not find a centipede flower garland anywhere, so she said that she would make her brother wear a plastic garland this year for Tihar.
'This year, it was a surprise. Even when she searched the market for centipede garlands, she could not find any. Now, she will wear this plastic garland!' she said. She said that the garlands of centipedes, which are available sporadically in some shops in the market, are also very expensive. ‘You can’t find them in a hurry, and even if you do find them, they are unaffordable,’ she said.
A businessman says that flowers were imported from neighboring India this year after Nepal’s flower production was low. Anand Dahal, a cosmetic shop owner in Gaighat, says, ‘We haven’t been able to supply centipede garlands to the market as per demand. Flowers coming from India are more expensive than those produced here.’
Some say that there is a shortage of flowers in the market during Tihar despite the decrease in the number of flower growers as before. ‘The village workers are in the city market, and the shortage of flowers this year is due to the decrease in the number of flower growers,’ said Maya Bhandari of Gaighat.
Some say that the market is lacking flowers because the road network was damaged due to the rains during Dashain, which caused the flowers to not reach the market. Some say that there is a shortage of flowers during Tihar because Tihar has come before the time for the flowering of the flowers. 
Meanwhile, students of Triveni Secondary School in Katari Municipality have been cultivating the flowers on the school grounds every year, targeting Tihar. Students of the agricultural technical stream of Triveni Secondary School have been cultivating the flowers of the flowers, velvet and Godavari commercially under the ‘Earning by studying’ program. Katari Municipality has also requested that the flowers produced by the students of Triveni Secondary School be used instead of the plastic flowers available in the market.
Targeting the upcoming Tihar and Chhath festivals, the municipality has requested that local production be prioritized and the use of imported plastic materials be stopped. Mayor Rajesh Chandra Shrestha said that the city has been adopting such a policy since last year with the slogan 'Let's use local products instead of importing fake flowers and plastic garlands'.
According to him, not using local products will increase environmental pollution on the one hand and drain the money of the city residents on the other, so the ban on fake flower garlands has been in place. The school has been encouraging its own products since last year's Tihar and Chhath and has banned the sale and distribution of fake flower garlands, informed Chief Administrative Officer Rajan Thapa.
However, this year, since flower production in other parts of the district is not sufficient and there is a lot of demand from the market, Nitesh Adhikari, a student who has been cultivating flowers, said that he will not be able to 'receive orders' from now on. The school has also made such a notice public.
