Bangalore Trade Centre inaugurated

Better infrastructure in a year: Dharam
Vijay Times and The Hindu

Bangalore: Chief Minister N Dharam Singh on Monday said city infrastructure will be improved within a year to boost foreign investment.

“I have instructed government agencies to complete fly-over, road and grade separator works within a year," he said after inaugurating the Karnataka Trade Promotion Organisation Exhibition Complex in Whitefield. He hoped that better infrastructure would contribute in making the city a suitable place for hosting international events. He pointed out that a trade centre built on the lines of Pragati Maidan in New Delhi was needed for a technology city like Bangalore.

“It is better than Pragati Maidan. The opening of the new trade centre would herald a new era in increasing trade opportunities in the state,” he said. "The state-of-the-art exhibition hall built as per global standards at a cost of Rs 17 crore is a welcome step." He announced that the Thailand Government had come forward to hold a Thai International Trade Fair from September 23 to 26 at the new Trade Centre. Industries Minister P G R Sindhia in his address said the State Government will instruct BMTC to ply special buses to the venue during exhibitions and trade fairs.

Trade Centre Bangalore came out of a February 1999 memorandum of understanding between the Union and the State Governments. The KIADB acquired 20 hectares of land for the project. The first module (or exhibition hall), estimated at Rs. 9 crores, should have been ready by 2001-02. It was delayed because the Central Public Works Department that executed the project got a modified Rs. 17-crore plan sanctioned only in May 2003.

The exhibition hall has a space-frame roof of 10,000 sq. m and is said to be the largest "steel space-frame in the country."