CREDAI Conclave 2015: Gujarat's GIFT City A Gift To India, Says CM Anandiben Patel

Gujarat chief minister Anandiben Patel termed the state's upcoming financial services centre, known as the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT), as a gift to the country. She was speaking at a conclave organized by developers' body CREDAI in the national capital recently.

She added that the GIFT City was the first city in the country where infrastructure was created before developing it further. The only place where non-rupee transactions were done.

Located on the banks of the Sabarmati river near Gandhinagar, GIFT is being pegged to give a tough competition to other financial services centres in Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong. In June 2007, the then chief minister and the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi had proposed the GIFT City as an international financial services centre (IFSC).

Deliberating on the details of the financial hub, managing director and group CEO of GIFT City Ajay Pandey said, “GIFT is a classic example of a single window clearance with its own urban development authority.”

Enabled by information and communications technology, GIFT City is a smart city powered with integrated development with walk-to-work and more, Pandey added.

The city's main idea is to provide high-quality physical infrastructure such as electricity, water, gas, roads, telecoms, broadband, etc, so that the financial sector can shift its operations from other metros, where infrastructure is either very expensive or not sufficient. It will have a special economic zone (SEZ), international education zone, integrated townships, an entertainment zone, hotels, a convention centre, an international techno park, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) units, shopping malls, stock exchanges and service units.
Speaking on the recent apprehensions of developers regarding the proposed real estate bill, the chief minister said, “We have taken a note of developers' issues in the real estate bill, and we will take them along in our journey towards development.”