Our Correspondent
India’s four-storey pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai will be completed and handed over to event organisers by the end of July. The six-month Expo beginning in October was postponed from 2020 owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Built at a cost of Rs 5 billion ($70 million), the pavilion is spread across a 1.2-acre plot which is one of the largest at the Expo site.
“The India pavilion will be handed over to the Expo 2020 team by end of July 2021. Almost 75 per cent is complete, including flooring, utilities, facade, and painting,” said Siddhartha Kumar Baraily, press officer at the Indian consulate in Dubai.
“The design elements reflect the vibrant diversity of India’s rich culture, heritage, thriving business milieu. It will be a highly dynamic pavilion where the showcasing changes every one to two weeks in sync with the changing themes of the Expo and with each new state coming in.”
“Expo 2020 will give an opportunity to Indian businesses and provide them with a global platform to tap the markets in the region,” Baraily said. “It will give India an opportunity to showcase the diversity of Indian culture and encourage Emiratis and others to discover different parts of India.”
The physical completion of the pavilion will be over by end of April 2021 and will be followed by curation and exhibition related work.
The pavilion aims to blend history and art with technology and business using displays and exhibitions from different States.
The entrance pays a tribute to the country’s Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi with a charka display. A mosaic of earthy-coloured panels that rotate in the wind is part of the pavilion’s changing facade.
The pavilion’s ground floor will have a display on India’s Mars mission. Visitors can walk down a green path filled with medicinal herbs to enter a section dedicated to yoga and wellness.
The next three levels will showcase Indian heritage, the country’s best tourism destinations, and established and emerging businesses.
As visitors leave, they will have a chance to ask questions of Gandhi through interactive holographic images.
Visitors will be invited to participate in festivals such as Diwali and Holi.
Celebrity chefs, authors, scientists and Bollywood actors are expected to grace the pavilion.
Unlike other buildings that will be dismantled after the Expo ends in March 2022, the India pavilion is one of three that will remain as part of the legacy of the global exhibition.
