The complex, to be developed on at least 95 acres, will have more than 10,000 offices and showrooms, say officials. And this time, “mistakes made in developing the Sector-18 market will be corrected”, an Authority official stressed. When operational, officials said, it will be one of its kind in the National Capital Region (NCR), making even the newer, bigger malls such as Great India Place in Sector-38A look pale.

Noida Authority opened the scheme on Friday; it is selling tender forms for Rs 5,000 through banks. The Authority plans to sell plots of 95 acres each to develop the complex. Connected to the Capital and areas in Noida and Greater Noida through the Okhla barrage, Noida-Greater Noida Expressway and the Amity flyover, the complex would be more accessible and less congested, officials said.

Noida Authority CEO Mohinder Singh said the builder would be allowed to use 25 per cent of the allotted land for the main building, which would be at least 100 feet in height. The rest of the space, he said, would be utilised for parking spaces, roads, separate electrical arrangements, and parks.

Planning ahead, “we are making sure there is enough room for parking,” he said. About downsides of the Sector 18 market, Singh said parking lots and open spaces like parks were a problem there. Allotment of land in the sector for construction, too, has been haphazard, he said. The authorities did not impose conditions on shopowners to build parking lots, Singh said.

For this reason, he emphasised, the expansion of the new complex will be vertical, not horizontal. Noida Authority officials said the building’s height is still open for discussion: while the minimum limit is 100 feet (about 10 storeys), anything above that has been kept open. The maximum height, officials said, can be up to 100 storeys.

As per plans, builders will be allowed to sell spaces for multiplexes, showrooms and other commercial activities.

Officials said the four-storey Great India Place Mall operates under an agreement that allows the owner of World of Wonders amusement park to use 15 per cent land for commercial activity. This complex, officials said, will be purely for commercial activity, so the builder can expand the area accordingly.

Noida Authority’s then CEO Sanjeev Saran had first unveiled the scheme last February, but it had to be withheld due to conditions imposed by the election commission in view of the state Assembly elections, held in April-May 2007.