Down the banks of the Sabarmati river, about 10 km from Mahatma Gandhi’s austere ashram where time has stood still, is a city of high-rise, glass-fronted smart buildings. They aspire to house multinational conglomerates accustomed to a built-up infrastructure and an IT-managed world. Spread across 1,000 acres, Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, or GIFT City, is the current Prime Minister, then Chief Minister of the State, Narendra Modi’s 2008 dream.
Last September, the Global Financial Centres Index ranked GIFT City at 62nd position, higher than Mumbai, at 66, but far from Singapore, in third position behind New York and London. Amid a slew of incentives to set up shop here, a hustle culture with the Prime Minister descending on GIFT City a few times a year, and business leaders like Mukesh Ambani calling it “a gateway of modern India’s growth”, the city is projecting itself as hyper-everything: hyper-modern, hyper-connected, hyper-developing.
The development plan was approved in 2011, but a revised plan is under way. “GIFT City has been envisioned as a high-rise high-density Central Business District (CBD) targeting approximately 5 lakh employment developing 62 mn. sq.ft of built-up area which comprises of (sic) commercial, residential and social facilities,” the planning proposal report 2023 says.
