Srei gets Big Bazaar to set up highway mall

Bengal Shristi, the Srei group's urban infrastructure venture, has signed on Big Bazaar of the Pantaloons retailing chain to be the anchor tenant at the shopping mall section in the 3 lakh square feet City Centre project in Durgapur, a highway town on National Highway 2 (Grand Trunk Road).

Hemant Kanoria, managing director of SREI, and director pf Bengal Shristi, said the company's thrust on infrastructure projects would yield continuous growth.

Two urban infrastructure projects were ready to take off of which one would be a 100-acre township project at Asansol in West Bengal. Its 3 lakh square feet city centre complex at Durgapur in West Bengal was likely to be completed by end-2004 as well.

The Durgapur Big Bazaar would be the first highway mall for the retail chain. Durgapur has several steel plants and was a sub-regional transport hub where road and rail systems from southern and western India connected to systems serving eastern and north-eastern India.

The Big Bazaar would occupy 30,000 sq.ft of space. Another 30,000sq.ft has been set aside for a multiple. A third section of about 40,000sq.ft would host a food market and other retailers.

Bengal Shristi's City Centre has three components - commercial retail plaza which has been completed, and a housing complex and shopping mall. The last two would be completed be end-2004. The retail plaza has stores like Reebok, Reliance Infocomm, HDFC Bank and some financial institutions.