MACE (Major Atmospheric Cherenkov Experiment), an imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope, has recently been installed by the HiGRO (Himalayan Gamma-Ray Observatory) collaboration at Hanle (32.8^â—¦N, 78.9^â—¦E, 4270m asl) in Ladakh region of North India. The telescope has a 21m diameter large light collector consisting of indigenously developed 1424 square-shaped diamond turned spherical aluminum mirror facets of size ∼ 0.5m×0.5m. MACE is the second largest Cherenkov telescope at the highest altitude in the northern hemisphere. The imaging camera of the telescope consists of 1088 photo-multiplier tubes with a uniform pixel resolution of ∼ 0.125^â—¦ covering a field of view of ∼ 4.0^â—¦ × 4.0^â—¦. The main objective of the MACE telescope is to study gamma-ray sources mainly in the unexplored energy region 20 -100 GeV and beyond with high sensitivity. In this paper, we describe the key design features and current status of MACE including results from the trial observations of the telescope.