Cactus Garden Dome, Ekta Nagar (Kevadia)

The Cactus Garden is one of the attractions created around the Statue of Unity, the monument to Sardar Patel near the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Narmada district. It was developed by the GEER Foundation around a simple idea: to show visitors a desert ecosystem in a landscape otherwise dominated by water, that of the river and the dam's reservoir.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened the garden on 30 October 2020, during a visit in which seventeen projects of the Integrated Development of Kevadia programme were due to be opened. The town is now known as Ekta Nagar, the name used by the site's official ticketing service.

The site was planned as a stop on the statue's tourist circuit with a clear educational purpose, with information boards, displays on how succulents adapted to arid conditions, and a shop selling cactus-based and herbal products.

The main building is a large octagonal dome of 836 m², which tourism descriptions count among the largest in India. The sources consulted name neither its architect nor its builder and give no structural details; they describe it as an architectural greenhouse providing a controlled environment for the most delicate and exotic species in the collection.

Around the dome the garden covers 25 acres of open ground laid out with rockeries, paths and zones devoted to different groups of plants. Erosion-control blankets protect the slopes, and an 8 kW solar installation contributes to running the site. A nursery on the grounds propagates succulents and grafted cacti.

According to Gujarat Tourism, the garden holds about 600,000 plants: some 190,000 cacti, 160,000 other succulents and 250,000 ornamental plants. More than 450 species of cacti and succulents, Indian and foreign, are represented, drawn from 17 countries and mainly from North America, South America and Africa.

The dome is home to the exotic species as well as rare and endangered varieties. Plants mentioned in press coverage include golden barrel cacti, prickly pears and agaves. The displays return to one theme throughout: all these plants descend from species of ordinary habitats that gradually adapted to increasingly dry climates.

The Cactus Garden lies on the bank of the Narmada, about 2.5 km from the Sardar Sarovar Dam, next to the Butterfly Garden, another themed garden on the site. It is one of the attractions covered by the basic entry ticket, together with the Valley of Flowers, the museum, the dam viewpoint and Arogya Van. Around half an hour is enough for a visit, and the signboards make it an instructive outing for students and nature enthusiasts. Vadodara, some 90 km away, is the nearest gateway city by road, rail or air.