All you need to know about GIFT City Gandhinagar: Smart City

Introduction

GIFT City initiative is the brainchild of the Honorable Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi. India’s first International Financial Services Center (IFSC) was formed in 2015 at the Gujarat International Financial Tech City (GIFT City) – a greenfield investment base located near Gandhinagar, the capital of the western state of Gujarat. A City located on the bank of river Sabarmati is India’s first operational smart known as GIFT City. With the development of world-class infrastructure and sustainable master planning, will put GIFT at equal with or above renowned centers like London, Shanghai, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai, etc. In this blog, we will discuss the background and latest updates about GIFT City Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

What is the meaning of GIFT City?

The full name of GIFT City is Gujarat International Finance Tech City. It is a commercial district consisting of commercial and residential spaces, with commercial spaces used to develop infrastructure to provide global financial services to investors. Gift City’s companies include offshore banking, asset management, and insurance. Companies involved in capital markets, information technology (IT) services, business process outsourcing, etc., are setting up their units in Gujarat GIFT City to provide global financial and IT services in the country. Gift City also hosts multiple International Financial Services Centers (IFSC) which are approved and regulated by the government.

What is the aim of GIFT City Gandhinagar?

According to official announcements, Gujarat International Finance Tech City aims to significantly boost India’s smart-city mission by playing a critical role in the emerging finance and technology sectors. GIFT City was conceived in 2007, and planning was awarded to the East China Architectural Design and Research Institute (ECADI), known for planning much of modern-day Shanghai. It aims to study Gift City and its major physical infrastructure. And also to understand the various infrastructures that can be further incorporated into India’s many smart city projects

Overview of GIFT City Gnadhinagar

Gujarat Gift City is planned for a land area of 359 hectares (886 acres) with approximately 110 buildings with a built-up area of 62,000,000 square feet, of which approximately 67% are commercial, 22% are residential and 11% are social facilities. Currently, 2,000,000 square feet of commercial space is operational, and another 3,000,000 square feet is under development.

Following are the proposed utilities for the Gujarat GIFT City:

1. Electricity: A power supply line of 400 MV is proposed to reduce the chances of power outage. Cables will be laid in utility tunnels with thick concrete walls in redundant routes.

2. Telecommunication Services: GIFT City will have state-of-the-art telecommunication systems based on the concept of FTTX (Fiber to Home/Office). Communication lines will be laid in a fault-tolerant rich architecture to ensure maximum uptime of services.

3. Piped gas: Natural gas is distributed to every home and building through pipes, which is cheaper and safer than cylinders. Gas supply to the city is done from the existing gas network of state-owned companies for gas transmission pipelines. Ahmedabad and nearby cities of Gandhinagar already have piped natural gas distribution.

4. Solid waste management: All city waste is collected through vacuum chutes installed on every floor of all buildings and taken to processing plants. The waste is automatically sucked through underground chutes at a speed of 90 km/h and processed by various methods including plasma gasification.

5. Transportation: Transportation in GIFT City Gandhinagar will include metro, light rail, and bus rapid transportation systems and the use of an electric personal rapid transit system within the city.

What is the area profile of GIFT City Gandhinagar?

• GIFT City is an integrated development on 886 acres of land with 62 million square feet of built-up area comprising of office space, residential, schools, hospitals, hotels, clubs, retail, and various recreational facilities.
• It is a vertical city that will optimize the utilization of land area for development.
• GIFT is located on the banks of the Sabarmati River, which connects the commercial capital (Ahmedabad) and the political capital (Gandhinagar) of Gujarat State – The Growth Engine of India.
• It is located at a distance of 12 km from Ahmedabad International Airport.
• The GIFT City has a multi-service Special Economic Zone (SEZ) dedicated to international operations for players in various service sectors.
• Also, the GIFT Multi-Service SEZ has the status of India’s first International Financial Services Center (IFSC) approved by the Government of India.
• The establishment of IFSCs in India is expected to increase employment opportunities, which will increase economic activity and generate income.

What are the Developments in GIFT City?

• On October 18, 2014, Brigade Group, a Bengaluru-based company, announced an investment of Rs. 500 cores to develop a built-up area of 100,000 square meters. There is also an option to develop an additional 160,000 square meters for Rs 600 crore.
• In the 2020 annual budget, the Government of India has provided a single regulator for GIFT City.
• Major clients in the city include Oracle Inc., TCS, Bank of America, Cybage, BSE, NSE, MCX, STT (Singapore Telemedia), and others.
• Gujarat Urban Development Corporation (GUDC) is developing software development centers for various IT companies in Gujarat. The center will focus on innovations in IoT, analytics, BI, and robotics.
• GIFT City’s first affordable housing project ‘Janamangala’ was inaugurated in 2017. The project comprises around 300 dwellings.
• On December 5, 2019, Business Standard reported that Bank of America opened a Global Business Services Center at GIFT City.
• India’s largest real estate developer, Sobha Developers, is building premium housing in Gift City. This will be a 32-storey building with world-class facilities.
• On January 6, 2020, Accor opened its first international hotel in GIFT City.
• In April 2023, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) facilitated the investment process at the International Financial Services Center (IFSC) at GIFT City, Gujarat through the Liberalized Remittance Scheme (LRS) route.

Conclusion

After its completion, GIFT City has boosted the economy of the country. Gift City is providing various facilities and advanced infrastructure facilities which will become a prototype to develop other smart cities as well as set a benchmark for the rest of the smart city projects. The smart city is a host for cross-border financial services for investors. Both Indian and international banks can set up their units in gift cities to provide international banking services within the country.