According to state housing minister Suresh Jain, the convention centre would be developed on a 7.5 acre of land owned by the State Government. He added that Hudco which would fund the entire project would carry out its implementation in close liaison with the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada), a Government undertaking. Hudco's regional director RK Khanna would supervise the implementation of this project.

The convention centre would also comprise cultural centre, state-of-the-art auditoriums, libraries, theatres and restaurants. ``To make it financially viable, it would also offer corporate memberships,'' Jain said.

Jain said that it was ironical that though Mumbai has been acommercial capital of India, it did not have a convention centre of international standards so far. The organisers of international conferences, who had to go either at Delhi or Singapore or Dubai, would think of Mumbai with the completion of this project, he said.

Hudco director (corporate planning) PS Rana said that a detailed financial and feasibility study of this project would be completed within next three to four months. Hudco has so far received 29 bids from internationally acclaimed agencies like Arther Anderson, KPMG, DSP Merrill Lynch for holding feasibility study.

Rana said that the bids would be awarded soon. He informed that after completion of feasibility and viability study, global tenders would be floated for the project design.