FASHION Technology Park (FTP), touted to be the country’s first textile park, is finally set to take off after months of delay. Pune-based real estate and construction major Vascon Engineers Pvt Ltd has tied up with FTP to build the 14-acre textile park in Mohali. Vascon will design, develop and build the 1.6 million sq ft multi-purpose facility at an estimated cost of Rs 250 crore. “The work has already begun and it will take not more than 18 months to complete the project,” said R Vasudevan, chief managing director of Vascon Engineers. The project will roll out in three phases, of which the first is already under way. Though Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh had laid the foundation stone for the park in May last year, the project could not take off due to objections from environment agencies in the state. The central government had decided last year to grant SEZ status to only areas of 25 acres and above. The announcement had caused a flurry of activity to expand the park’s area to help it get SEZ status. “We may take additional land to scale it up to the desired land size. Consequently, the investments would also increase by 50%. If things go well, FTP will be the country’s first textile park,” Jagjit Kochhar, CEO of FTP, had told ET last June. Later, FTP had also urged the Department of Industrial Promotion and Policy (DIPP) to grant industrial park status to FTP but to no avail. Meanwhile, FTP signed four different agreements with ESMOD International Fashion School, Paris (France), Munch Design Workshop, Bangalore, BODHI Textile Design Studio & Workshop, Vadodra, and The Textile Manufacturers’ Association, Amritsar. Well-known architect Hafeez Contractor had designed FTP in such a way that it would have all functional needs of an industry including design studios, a research centre, testing labs, a convention centre, an auditorium, a residential complex and service apartments. The total area for construction of the park is nearly 17 lakh sq ft, of which the industrial zone will occupy 12 lakh sq ft. The commercial zone will account for 1.5 lakh sq ft while the residential zone is 3.50 lakh sq ft. The project will be by 2009. Vascon also plans to develop a number of projects in the region.