The Hindu Business Line : AP wants ICC complex to be completed by year-end

WITH Hyderabad being chosen as the venue of the Asian Development Bank, the Finance Ministers' annual conference to be held in May 2006, the State Government is making every effort to ensure that the Rs 900-crore Integrated Convention Centre Complex (ICCC), being developed in the city by Emmar Properties of Dubai, is completed by the end of this year.

" We want to have trial runs of the complex by hosting one or two events including the CII Partnership Summit before the ADB event", Mr L.V. Subramanyam, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of the Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC), told Business Line. The CII summit is slated to be held in January 2006.

The AP Government has mandated APIIC to take up the task of building ICCC and allotted 250 acres of prime land at Manikonda village, near here, for the project. The APIIC had selected Emmar Properties to develop the country's largest convention centre with a plenary hall capacity of 3,000 to 5,000 people. The complex will comprise among other things, a hotel, an 18-hole golf course, villas, breakaway rooms, food courts, restaurants and secretarial facilities.

At ICCC, according to Mr Subramanyam, "seating can be arranged from 200 to 3,000 people in 20 minutes time. Sidewalls and chairs can be dropped automatically at the desired places, everything is computerised".

He said that the Dubai-based developer has also now agreed to the State Government's proposal to develop an information technology park in an extent of 25 acres at cost of Rs 400 crore in the proposed ICCC, as Hyderabad has become a favourable destination for IT companies.

The State Government would take a 24 per cent stake in the ICCC as well as the IT park.

With regard to the Pharmacity near Visakhapatnam, Mr Subramanyam said the Government had decided to reserve 450 acres out of the total 1,100 acres of land to the AP-based pharmaceutical companies.

The AP pharmaceutical producers wanted reservation of the area and the State Government had agreed to their request. The developer of the Pharmacity would be permitted to market the balance 550 acres at the rates suitable to him.

Mr Subramanyam said the APIIC was hopeful of completing the land acquisition for the proposed special economic zone (SEZ) in the Kakinada-Visakhapatnam belt by the end of the current fiscal.

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