India Trade Promotion Organization

India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO) was incorporated by merger of Trade Development Authority (TDA), a Registered Society under Ministry of Commerce & Industry, with Trade Fair Authority of India (TFAI) with effect from 1 January 1992. TFAI was earlier incorporated, under Section 25 of the Indian Companies Act, 1956, on 30 December 1976 by amalgamating 3 organisations of the Government of India viz. India International Trade Fair Organisation, Directorate of Exhibitions & Commercial Publicity and Indian Council of Trade Fairs & Exhibitions and commenced operations with effect from 1 March 1977.

ITPO, during its existence of more than 3 decades has played a proactive role in catalysing trade, investment and technology transfer processes. Its promotional tools include organising of fairs and exhibitions in India and abroad, Buyer-Seller Meets, Contact Promotion Programmes, Product Promotion Programmes, Promotion through Overseas Department Stores, Market Surveys and Information Dissemination.

Some of the structures in Pragati Maidan were designed by the best Architects of their times, like the following:

Hall-6 (Hall of Nations), Hall 2-5 (Hall of Industries) and Nehru Pavilion were designed by iconic architect Raj Rewal along with architect Kuldip Singh in 1971–1972. They were demolished in 2017 to give way for Redevelopment of Pragati Maidan.

Later on, Hall-14 (Hall of States) was designed by architect Raj Rewal in 1981–1982. This was also demolished in 2017 to give way for Redevelopment of Pragati Maidan.

National Science Centre was designed by architect Achyut Kanvinde.

Craft Museum was designed by architect Charles Correa.

Hall-7 was designed by architect Rajinder Kumar.

ITPO has two subsidiaries namely Tamil Nadu Trade Promotion Organisation (TNTPO) and Karnataka Trade Promotion Organisation (KTPO) with share holding of 51 percent in each of them. With the commissioning of the state-of-the-art Chennai Trade Centre (CTC) in January 2001 and the Trade Centre Bangalore in September 2004, ITPO has successfully completed the first phase of the setting-up of modern exhibition facilities outside Delhi.

In FY 2015–2016, TNTPO and KTPO registered revenues of about ₹315 million and ₹48 million respectively and have reserves of about ₹1840 million and ₹390 million respectively.

The Chennai Trade Centre, which is now spread across 14,000 sqm, is planned to be expanded by addition of 6,000 sqm and ITPO is seeking approval from the board of the TNTPO for the same.

In 1995, ITPO launched 50:50 Joint subsidiary with National Informatics Centre (NIC) in the form of National Centre for Trade Information (NCTI), for collection and dissemination of trade data and improving Business Information Services to the business community, especially SME. In 2015–2016, NCTI registered operational loss of about ₹2 million and net negative assets of about ₹4 million.