Pragati Maidan to be redeveloped into world-class convention centre
The ₹2,254 crore project would have a state-of-the-art Convention Centre with seating capacity of 7,000 persons — five times the capacity of Vigyan Bhavan.
The Centre approved the project to redevelop Pragati Maidan into a world class Integrated Exhibition-cum-Convention Centre (IECC) on Tuesday.
To be ready in early 2019, the world class convention centre may be the venue for G20 Summit to be hosted by India, a senior department of commerce official told HT.
“The Rs 2,254 crore project would have a state-of-the-art Convention Centre with seating capacity of 7,000 persons — five times the capacity of Vigyan Bhavan. After redevelopment, the exhibition space would also get doubled to 1.19 lakh sq mtr as against 65,000 sq mtr at present,” said Rita Teaotia, secretary department of commerce, ministry of commerce & industry.
“We hope to complete the phase 1 in early 2019 and may host G20 summit here in IECC,” Teaotia said on the side lines of curtain raiser event on Global Exhibition on Services on Tuesday. This global event is being held at India Expo Mart in Greater Noida on April17-20.
According to the department officials, current facilities at Pragati Maidan are far short of international standards. With India’s growing international profile and increasing presence at the summit, ministerial and other levels, a need has been felt to have a modern world class Integrated Exhibition-cum-Convention Centre in New Delhi to provide an appropriate venue for international events.
Read: Should the World Book Fair evolve into Delhi’s JLF?
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the proposal of India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO), a Mini Ratna Category-1 Company under the department of commerce, for redevelopment of Pragati Maidan on Tuesday.
Teaotia said that the CCEA approval will pave the way for financial closure and completion of design, engineering and other approvals.
“However, some of the work on the project has already kicked off, demolition of one of the pavilions has completed and project management consultant and architect consultants have been appointed,” she said.
ITPO will utilise Rs 1,200 crore out of its free reserves towards funding of the project. ITPO will raise institutional loan land monetisation for the balance amount of Rs 1,054 crore with government guarantee for the amount of institutional loan. Phase-1 of the project will result in total redevelopment of nearly 3.26 lakh sq.mtrs.
For execution of this project, ITPO has appointed National Buildings Construction Corporation Ltd as a project management consultant. ITPO will call for global bids for selection of project executor(s) to complete the project.