The Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC), which has been entrusted with the task of booking as many as 120 exhibition stalls, has fixed the rental charges for each of the stalls between Rs 2.5 lakh and 20 lakh, based on their size.

Apart from the higher tariff fixed for the exhibition stalls, what appears to have irked business houses is the diktat being reportedly issued by the GIDC for the mandatory booking of these.

When asked, Nayan Raval, senior General Manager, GIDC told Newsline that “the response to the booking of exhibition stalls by business houses from different parts of the country has been overwhelming”. He said the GIDC has not made it mandatory for any corporate house to hire stalls at the venue of the Vibrant Gujarat business summit.

The GIDC has chalked out plans to facilitate industrial houses to set up as many as 120 kiosks of different sizes at the Science City complex to display their products and innovations for a week beginning January 11. The rental charges for a 200 sq metre front side stall has been pegged at a whopping Rs 20 lakh, while the tariff for a similar size backside stall has been fixed at Rs 18 lakh.

About a dozen stalls of these two higher categories will be set up.

Justifying the higher tariff fixed for the stalls, a senior official in the State Industries Department said: "We have to raise money to meet the expenses on organising the two-day global business summit at such a high scale. We propose to generate about Rs seven crore through the rental charges of exhibition kiosks."

When contacted, a senior official of a leading corporate house said the tariff fixed for the stalls this time is almost four times higher than what the company had paid to the government at the previous Vibrant Gujarat events.

"Our firm has received a communication from the GIDC to get a stall booked, but our corporate bosses are yet to take a decision on this. We are going to make a representation to the government to fix a reasonable rental rate for exhibition kiosks in view of the economic meltdown," he added.

Meanwhile, Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) spokesman Arjun Modhwadia has termed the higher tariff fixed for the exhibition stalls as "a blatant attempt by the Modi government to extort money from the industrial houses under the guise of organising a global investors' meet."