Convention Centre to be inaugurated in July

Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) has fixed July as the target date to open the Biswa Bangla Convention Centre.

Senior officials of HIDCO including its chairman Debashis Sen and engineers along with their counterparts in L&T visited the convention centre where work is being carried out on a war-footing. It may be mentioned that construction work of the Convention Centre, the biggest of its kind in eastern India, was badly hit due to demonetisation as the masons who hailed mostly from Murshidabad went back to their villages. The state government has decided to hold the two-day Bengal Global Business Summit, 2018, at the Convention Centre.

Meanwhile, three heavy duty standby generators were installed at the Convention Centre on Wednesday. Two generators have 1,500KW capacity while the third one has 1,000 KW capacity. They will consume 500 litres of diesel and will run for half-an-hour. New Town Electricity Supply Corporation Limited (NTESCL) officials who were present on Wednesday were asked to make some alternative arrangements to supply uninterrupted power to the Convention Centre. It has a 3,000 capacity auditorium, the biggest in the state. There is a hotel that has a capacity of 100 and will be run by a private player. The Centre will have accommodation for guests, a gymnasium, a library and halls to hold seminars and symposia. The Centre is coming up beside the Bagjola canal whose beautification process has already begun.

A floating jetty will be constructed and the state government also proposes to set up a floating vegetable market. The pathway has been developed and chairs and umbrellas have been installed too.

The Convention Centre is situated close to Rajarhat's Eco Park and Rabindra Tirtha, the main cultural hub in New Town. A model of the proposed centre was shown at BGBS and it had evoked great response among people.