City fails to attract enough exhibitors

Rachna Khaira

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Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, April 12

Despite the district known to be an NRI hub and pioneer in the field of manufacturing sports goods, hand tools and even leather products, yet it failed to act as a launch pad for majority of them due to the shortage of adequate facilities like exhibition halls, professional event management companies and even due to lack of interest by the district administration to promote the city as an exhibition hub. 

Nimish Arora, organiser of a renowned annual trade fair in the city, said: “There is no ample space to organise a mega trade fair with state of the art facilities like hangers clubbed by children’s corner and food court. We just have two to three exhibition halls in the city and that too were highly congested. Due to this, we are not been able to offer a launch pad to high end manufacturers from the field of sports, leather and hand tool industry in the city to exhibit and launch their products from the city itself.”

Another organiser Vikas said the city also lacks professionals who could offer state of the art facilities to hold an international level exhibition. “There is an acute shortage of service providers all across the state. For every requirement to hold a decent exhibition; we either have to look at Chandigarh or Delhi to avail the services,” said Vikas. 

Jalandhar being hub for many industries can prove to be a perfect launch pad for the companies who would like introduce their product at the international level. Due to lack of facilities in the city, the manufacturers were forced to launch all their products in some national or international level exhibition abroad. 

“Like the international hosiery fair at Ludhiana, Jalandhar too can organize an annual international exhibition of sports, leather or hand tool goods in the city. The city can also host an international medical conference in the city as it has the highest number of medical care centres in the whole of Asia,” said Raja Kandola, a Delhi-based event organiser. He said the move apart from bringing mammoth revenue to the district administration will also promote tourism in the region. 

Presently, except Desh Bhagat Yaadgaar Hall, few of the hotels too hold exhibitions but they are far too expensive for small time exhibitors based in the city. Though, Guru Gobind Singh hall can act as an alternate space for holding an international level trade fair, it requires the installation of hangers, a mammoth costly affair which due to the lackadaisical attitude of the local industry and the district administrations, the event management companies are scared to opt for.