This one will put Pune on global map

With Pune serving as a major automobile and IT hub, the first of-its-kind Pune International Exhibition and Convention Centre (PIECC) coming up at Moshi is need of the hour for serving as a platform for industries around the area and in western Maharashtra to display their technology and products.

Pegged at Rs600 crore, it would be first such centre in Maharashtra on the lines of Pragati Maidan in New Delhi.

Pune Metropolitan Region (PMR) comprising Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad is one of the fastest growing urban agglomerations of India besides being an international education destination. An international exhibition centre is required to position Pune on the global map.

The PIECC is proposed to have facilities comparable to exhibition centres of Hanover in Germany, Birmingham in Britain and Tokyo in Japan. It will have state-of-the art closed exhibition (air-conditioned) halls, convention centres supported by meeting rooms, banquet halls and classroom training set ups.

The exhibition and convention space will be supported by world-class hotels and service apartments. It will also cater to the local population through upscale retail complexes, recreational facilities such as multi-cuisine restaurants, gaming zones, golf course, go-carting tracks, library facilities and amphi-theatres.

It will be developed on a 40.5-hectare plot at Moshi, around 15 km from the proposed international airport, and is situated within the automobile manufacturing and engineering industrial area of the PMR. Price waterhouseCoopers (PwC) had prepared a feasibility study for the proposed centre in this regard. It will be jointly developed by the PCMC and Pimpri-Chinchwad New Township Development Authority (PCNTDA) under the aegis of the state urban development department.

The project would be ready in the next 3-4 years. It is expected to be developed on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis where the private investor recovers the cost through rental fees.