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The Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, popularly known as GIFT City, will expand by roughly 2,300 acres by incorporating four villages in Gujarat’s Gandhinagar district. This is GIFT City’s first major expansion since it was conceptualised in 2007, and will expand the project area to more than thrice its existing size, from 1,065 acres to approximately 3,365 acres.
“The expansion is needed because of the increased demand. Almost 50 per cent of the area within GIFT City has been allotted. Secondly, we do not want haphazard development in the peripheral area where there will be slums and inequitable development. So, the expanded area will be developed on the same lines as the GIFT City,” said Tapan Ray, MD & CEO of GIFT City.
Ahmedabad-based urban planner and architect, Bimal Patel whose firm HCP Design, Planning and Management Pvt Ltd designed and built the new Parliament building in Delhi, has been selected to draw up the master plan for the proposed expansion. “We needed someone who is not just a town planner, but has knowledge of local laws and the regulations of the state,” Ray said. He added that the original master plan of the GIFT City will be “tweaked” to assimilate it with the proposed expansion. The firm was selected via ‘expression of interest mode’.
Situated between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar on the banks of Sabarmati river, GIFT City was conceptualised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a global financial hub and India’s “first operational smart city”. GIFT City has a multi-service Special Economic Zone (SEZ) housing the country’s first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) that provides corporations with easier access to global financial markets and caters to the requirements of international financial services. It also has a Domestic Tariff Area (DTA) which refers to areas outside the SEZ within the country.
The four villages of Shahpur, Ratanpur, Lavarpur and Pirojpur with a combined estimated population of 25,000 were selected for the expansion since they are in the immediate vicinity of GIFT City. “There will be no relocation of the villagers and the villages will be part of the expanded GIFT City,” Ray said.
“We will not be making any acquisition ourselves as the entire process is expected to be costly. Private developers will acquire the land from farmers and develop it,” he added. The process of expansion is in the nascent stages and the role of private developers will be clearer once the master plan is ready.
Of the total 1,065 acres on which GIFT City stands, 741 acres belong to GIFT City Company Ltd, a Gujarat government-owned entity, while the rest is private land. When the project was first developed, the land, mostly wasteland, was acquired by the state government as part of a joint venture with IL&FS. After the exit of IL&FS from the venture in June 2020, the project is now wholly owned by the Gujarat government.
“The skyline of the expanded area will remain like that of GIFT City. The buildings and infrastructure — which includes automatic waste collection, underground utilities etc — will also remain the same,” Ray said.
Currently, GIFT City employs 20,000 persons in banking, finance and IT services. About 50 per cent of the area is either developed or under different stages of development. However, there are only about 300 residents, mostly blue collar workers such as technicians, carpenters, plumbers, maintenance personnel and their families. This is since most of the residential projects are under construction and are yet to be occupied.
In November 2022, GIFT City Company Ltd, sent a proposal to the Gujarat government to expand the limits of GIFT City. The expanded area, however, will not be under the ownership of GIFT Company Ltd, but is expected to be developed as per the development control regulations of GIFT Urban Development Authority (GIFT UDA). The Secretary of Gujarat’s urban development and housing department heads GIFT-UDA which was formed in 2012 and has separate rules for urban construction compared to the rest of Gujarat. GIFT UDA does not follow the Common GDCR (General Development Control Regulations) in place for all cities in Gujarat – since GIFT City is a greenfield city and is to grow vertically.
Once the proposed expansion is complete, the boundaries of GIFT City will extend to National Highway 48 on the eastern side and the Sabarmati riverbed on the west. On the northern flank, the city will extend till the Gandhinagar bypass road, while on the southern side, a new road linking the PDEU bridge, which leads to the southern entrance of GIFT city, to NH-48 will be built.
Ray said that GIFT City along with the Gujarat government was also planning to develop “social infrastructure” and “evening life” within this greenfield city that is currently dominated by the footprint of employees working in the office spaces. Once residents occupy the under construction residential units — about 4500 residential units are currently being built — GIFT City also plans to undertake development of a Central Park, recreational areas, malls, theatres and other entertainment zones. Currently a school is already functional, while a hospital is being built. Apart from this, GIFT City already has its own fire brigade station, automatic garbage collection unit, underground utility tunnels, dedicated power station, district cooling system, piped drinking water, command and control centre and a data centre. It also has a hotel, a petrol pump and a business club.
GIFT City currently hosts 200 companies, India International Bullion Exchange, two international stock exchanges, Aircraft leasing firms, alternative investment fund, banks, broker dealers, clearing corporations, insurance and reinsurance companies, qualified jewellers and ship leasing firms among others. On Monday, the entire trading volumes of SGX Nifty shifted to GIFT IFSC where it began trading as GIFT Nifty.
GIFT City also expects to reclaim about 60 acres by developing the Sabarmati riverfront, along the lines of Ahmedabad city riverfront, for which tenders have been issued.
A total of 741 acres of the total area of GIFT City owned by GIFT City Company Ltd are being developed. “The private landowners who own 226 acres within the GIFT master plan do not have any regulation under which they can develop,” Ray said. Currently, GIFT City has a committed investment of Rs 14,500 crore. This is based on the sale of development rights in the project where land is given on a 99-year lease to investors.
“We have a developable area of 44 million square feet (existing), of which 24 million square feet has already been allotted. Around 50 per cent of land under GIFT Company’s ownership has been allotted for development. Of the 24 million square feet that has already been allotted, four million square feet (16 buildings) have been built while 27 additional buildings accounting for roughly 9-10 million square feet are under construction. This will be ready in another three years. The remaining 10 million square feet is under planning,” Ray added.
GIFT City’s infrastructure includes schools, hotels, clubs and proposed offshore campuses of foreign universities. Earlier this year Australia-based Deakin and Wollongong Universities announced setting up campuses at GIFT City and the beginning of operations from June 2024. Parks and gardens have been proposed and the city will eventually be connected to Ahmedabad by a metro train. The city has an automatic waste collection system, district cooling system, city command and control centre and piped drinking water.
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