Designs on decor

Rs 80-crore home accessories park in Noida soon

Foreign buyers in India no longer need to trek to Saharanpur to source wooden furniture or trudge to Moradabad for brassware. Or, for that matter, travel to Alleppy for natural fibre products.

All these products and more, will soon be available at the unique International Home Deco Park (IHDP).

Expected to come up in Noida, the proposed Park, with a project cost of Rs 80 crore, is positioned as a one-stop shop for international buyers looking for complete solutions in interiors "" from carpets, upholstery, furniture, lighting and textiles to decorative accessories.

Spread over five acres of land, the complex will house showrooms of about 50 select exporters dealing in different product categories.

Planned and designed by architect Vidur Bhardwaj, the park will comprise huge showroom studios, catalogue studios, design library, buyers' lounge, a cafe, apart from conveniences like travel desk, concierge, internet cafe and work stations that are being built around landscaped gardens and a water body.

"For every foreign buyer who comes to India, there are at least four who can't make it for they don't know where to go, whom to meet, or who to do business with without being cheated," points out Aditya Gupta, a partner in the Rs 200-crore Sharda Exports group "" a carpet manufacturing company based in Meerut.

The proposed park is Gupta's independent venture. The genesis of the dream project lies in the interactions he's had with his foreign buyers (nearly 120 of them) who can now check out a range of products, other than his carpets, during their visits.

The export park envisages an annual footfall of at least 5,000 buyers. "Delhi gets about 70-80 foreign buyers on any given day. If even 25 per cent of them visit our mall, it would add up to 20 buyers a day, or about 600 a month. So 5,000 visitors isa modest estimate," says Gupta, 37, an alumnus of the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi.

But the immediate challenge is to market the park to exporters and invite them to set up shops. Details are being sent to 200-odd reputed exporters.

Says Ichchhita Janvi, the company's marketing manager: "We are not making a big noise about the export park right now." A media campaign, however, will break in the outdoors and in trade magazines in July.

Vikas Dhingra, owner of buying house Speciality Merchandising Services with offices in New York, Shanghai and New Delhi, says that sourcing of products has been, by far, the biggest issue with customers travelling to India and China, the two main sourcing countries.

"The new park appears to offer a solution to foreign customers looking for reliable vendors besides saving time. There's no doubt that I'll get my buyers here, where they can operate in a relaxed and reliable environment," he adds.

Some exporters in the south claim to have received the dossier on the export park and say they are scrutinising the worthiness of the project.

Meanwhile, Gupta hopes that his proposed project will change the future of India's exports. In three years, the export park expects to do business worth $ 1 billion.

But Gupta will recover his cost in nine years. "There's no tax holiday for us and no government involvement in this project," he explains.