Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday reviewed the progress work of the upcoming India International Convention & Expo Centre (IICC) at Dwarka in the national capital and directed the officials to complete the project in a time-bound manner.
The IICC is a flagship project of the Government of India and is being developed to create a state-of-the-art and world-class exhibition and convention centre to promote Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) activities in India.
The foundation stone for the project was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 20, 2018.
"It will serve as a major economic driver helping India capture a larger share of global meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions market," Goyal said.
The project is planned over an area of 89.72 hectare in Sector 25 Dwarka, New Delhi with a total FAR of 10.70 lakh square metres (sqm) comprising of the convention centre (to accommodate 11,000 persons), 5 exhibition halls, one kilometre-long Foyer, Multi-purpose Arena with a retractable roof (to accommodate 20,000 persons), 3/4/5 Star Hotels, office space and commercial/retail space.
The project will be developed in two Phases. Phase-I is being developed with a convention centre (60,000 sqm) and two exhibition halls (61,000 sqm) with an adjoining foyer and entire the trunk infrastructure of the project. Phase-II is planned to be developed with the construction of 3 more Exhibition Halls, Arena, Hotels, Retail and Office space and will be taken after completion of Phase-I.
A dedicated underground Metro station, which is an extension of the Airport Express Metro, is being constructed by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and funded by IICC Ltd. The project site also boasts of excellent road connectivity with dedicated interchanges along the Dwarka Expressway and Urban Extension Road-II, an extended ring road within Delhi.
Development of the IICC and supporting components will help India grab a bigger slice of the world market share of hosting major international events and exhibitions. It is expected that the IICC will help increase India's share to around 13 per cent by 2024 and bring New Delhi in the league of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore in the sphere of exhibition market, the Ministry of Commerce & Industry said in a statement.
Within Asia, China accounted for more than 68 per cent (4.1 million sqm) of total available space for exhibition facilities. India, currently has only 0.3 million sqm of exhibition space which accounts for 4.9 per cent of the share of Asia.
In terms of events hosted across Asian markets, Chinese venues took lead by hosting more than 515 (28 per cent) events in Asia annually, as compared to Indian venues hosting 131 events (7.1 per cent). In the absence of high-end world-class exhibition and conference facilities, India has not benefited from the potential opportunities of this development.
Once operational, IICC is expected to host more than 100 National and International events every year, the ministry said.
( With inputs from ANI )
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