Phase I Of Hitex Opens Today

The Union Commerce and Industry Minister, Arun Shourie, will formally inaugurate the phase I of the HITEX (Hyderabad International Trade Expositions Limited), an international standard exhibitions and fairs centre in Madhapur,tomorrow on the occasion of Sankranti festival.

The Chief Minister, N Chandrababu Naidu, will open the Hitex office at the same site on the occasion.

Hitex, a 51:49 joint venture between L & T and National Academy of Construction (NAC), Hyderabad Urban Development Authority (Huda), Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) and the Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (APTDC), is a Rs 120 crore project and envisages facilities for holding international trade and industry fairs on the lines of those held annually in Germany.

It has been planned by Messe Dsseldorf of Germany, one of the world's largest organisers of international trade shows having presence in US, Singapore, China, Japan, Czechoslovakia and now India. Hitex will sprawl over a 100- acre site when completed.

The first phase of the project, to be inaugurated on Tuesday, has involved an investment of Rs 47 crore and has a floor area of over 10,000 square metres spread over three exhibition halls.

When completed, the Hitex Centre will have a convention centre to accommodate 6,000 persons, eight exhibition halls, each of 3,500 sq.metres space area and parking space for 1,500 vehicles.

Apart from exhibitions and fairs, the centre is planned with services like a star hotel with 300 rooms, VIPs lounge, media centre, meeting rooms, business centre, internet cafe, a lake-side restaurant, travel and forex and bank ATMs so that national and international conferences could be held there without hassles.

At present, considerable difficulty is being faced by institutions in organising conferences of international and national character in the existing five star hotels as these hotels do not have adequate parking space. This major shortcoming will be removed once Hitex Centre becomes fully operational.

According to the Chief Minister, N Chandrababu Naidu, whose dream Hitex is, the infrastructure and facilities to be provided at Hitex will surpass those available at the Trade Fair grounds in Delhi's Pragati Maidan, the current venue of the annual international trade fair and also several industry-wise fairs of international standard.

Hitex will also have a railway siding as in the case of Pragati Maidan. The maiden fair at Hitex will be Gitex Hyderabad 2003, a major IT exposition organised by the Dubai-based World Trade Centre and beginning on January 22.

The venue of the annual winter horticultural show, generally organised at the Public Gardens, is also being shifted to Hitex grounds. It begins on January 26. Nine other Expos are planned for the current year.