India’s The Hindu website has reported authorities in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, are looking to fast track plans for an international convention centre to be built at the AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC) Grounds in the Harbour Park area of the city.
As the 31 March deadline for receiving bids for Andhra Pradesh’s first international convention centre nears, chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu (pictured) has directed officials to speed up the project.
The Hindu reports that problems over the relevant land acquisition for the project have been sorted out and the project will likely go ahead at the sea-facing APIIC Grounds in the Harbour Park.
Ten acres in Harbour Park belongs to the AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation and the authorities have apparently convinced a mall owner to surrender four acres of an adjoining area and take an alternative land in the same vicinity as compensation.
If true, the move should enable the Infrastructure Corporation of AP to finalise a developer on a PPP basis to construct the ICC and a five-star hotel in the area.
“As Mr Naidu wants the AP’s first convention centre look better than HITEX in Hyderabad, we want to go for a best available design as well as landscaping,” The Hindu reports a senior official of the APIIC saying.
Two previous attempts by the AP state government to build international convention centres in 58 acres at Madhurawada and 20 acres at Mudasarlova were dropped due to lack of bidder interest.
CII-AP chairman G.S. Shiv Kumar said a new convention centre would help promote Visakhapatnam as a centre for MICE “in a big way”.
