Indian Cultural Centre shifting to new premises

The Indian Cultural Centre (ICC), working under the aegis of the Indian embassy, is to move to its new premises sometime next month.
The building is located besides the new expressway connecting the Medical Commission roundabout and D Ring Road.
The centre has been functioning for close to a decade at its current location in the Al Hilal area.
Speaking at a briefing chaired by Indian embassy minister and centre CCO Sanjiv Kohli, ICC president K M Varghese said the new two-storeyed building has approximately 1,400 square metres of built-up area.

Including the compound area this works out to 2,000 square metres, he said.
The new complex consists of four banquet halls, each capable of hosting between 100 to 120 persons at one time. The current facility had only one banquet hall.
Besides, a gym and a library, the new building also has a television room, managing committee hall, and five rooms which can be utilised as activity areas.
Apart from an open area for flag hoisting, the new facility would have provisions for a restaurant and 400-capacity hall similar to the Ashoka Hall, Varghese said.
It will also boast of e-electronic queuing system for services offered by the centre along with dedicated areas for different services.
The monthly rent alone for the new premises works out to QR40,000, Varghese said. “Besides, an equal amount is required as salaries for staff, monthly utilities bills and other expenses,” he said.
Varghese admitted that though the committee had been scouting for a new premises for more than 15 months, “the new one is certainly not to the best of our requirements”.
The president claimed he and team members had visited at least 78 buildings and four were shortlisted. “Finally, we had to settle for the new location,” he said.
Kohli said the Indian community had grown considerably in the last few years and there has been a need to move the centre to a new location.
“A lot more support is required from the community to ensure the centre’s smooth functioning,” he said.
Kohli thanked the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Urban Planning HE Sheikh Abdurrahman bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz al-Thani and local municipal officials for their interest in the activities of the Indian community, and also for facilitating the centre’s shift to the new location.
Kohli said it was the embassy’s dream to house the centre in its own building in the “not too distant a period”.
Asked if the shifting would adversely affect the centre-embassy functioning, Kolhi said it would have been beneficial if both were located close to each other.
Advisory council chairman Hassan Choughale, head of premises, Varghese Chacko, and general secretary, Mohamed Habibun Nabi, were also at the function as were ICC managing committee members Harish Kanjani, Ananthanarayanan Jaganathan, Usha Ravishankar and Milan Arun.