Deepak Fertilisers to enter retailing with Rs110-crore speciality mall for building industry

Mumbai: The foundation stone for Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals Corporation Limited's Rs110 crore Ishanya shopping mall project was laid by Maharastra's chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, in Pune on January 16, 2005.

Also present on the occasion were were Delhi chief minister, Sheila Dikshit, Pune mayor Dipti Chaudhari , industrialists, architects and designers.

Billed as India's largest speciality mall for interiors and building exteriors products and services for the real estate industry, Ishanya (which, in sanskrit means North-east), located on the doorstep of Mumbai in Pune's Yerwada area, will offer over 52 categories of products and services.

Ishanya has been conceived as a 'global specialty mall' to cater to the needs of architects, designers, builders and developers, home and office owners among others. It will comprise retail showrooms for products such as glazing, flooring, furniture, furnishing, white goods, lightning and also sculpture and landscape, offices for architects and interior designers, multipurpose convention and training centres, open air theatres, design studios, an arena for exhibitions, cafeterias and art galleries.

The project marks Deepak Fertilisers entry into the sunrise retail sector as an infrastructure provider. The project is due to be commissioned in December 2005.

Speaking on the occasion, Deshmukh urged the products and services suppliers to the construction industry to gear up for a boom in the Pune region. He said, "Estimates say that Pune and the six adjoining cities would need some 570 million square feet of built-up area in the next three years. This translates into an annual business potential of over Rs9,000 crore."