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Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, popularly known as GIFT City, will expand by about 2,300 acres by merging four villages in Gandhinagar district of Gujarat. This is GIFT City’s first major expansion since it was envisioned in 2007, and will expand the project’s footprint to more than triple its current size, from 1,065 acres to approximately 3,365 acres.
“Expansion is required due to the increase in demand. Almost 50 percent of the area within GIFT City has been allocated. Secondly, we do not want slum development in the surrounding areas as there will be slums and unfair development,” said Thapan Rai, Managing Director and CEO of GIFT City. Therefore, the expanded area will be developed in the style of GIFT City.
Ahmedabad urban planner and architect, Bimal Patel whose firm HCP Design, Planning and Management Pvt Ltd designed and built the new Parliament House in Delhi, has been selected to draw up the master plan for the proposed expansion. “We needed someone who was not just a city planner, but had knowledge of local laws and state regulations,” Ray said. He added that GIFT’s original city master plan would be “adjusted” to accommodate the proposed expansion. The company was selected through the Expression of Interest method.
Located between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar on the banks of the Sabarmati River, GIFT City was envisioned 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) that houses the nation’s first International Financial Services Center (IFSC) that provides companies with easy access to global financial markets and caters to international financial services requirements. It also has a Local Tariff Area (DTA) which refers to areas outside the Special Economic Zone within a country.
Four villages of Shahpur, Ratanpur, Lavarpur and Pirojpur with a total population of 25,000 were selected for expansion due to their being in the immediate vicinity of GIFT. “There will be no resettlement of villagers and the villages will be part of the expanded GIFT city,” Ray said.
We will not undertake any acquisition ourselves as the whole process is expected to be costly. He added that private developers will acquire land from farmers and develop it. The expansion process is still in its early stages and the role of private developers will become more clear once the master plan is in place.
Of the total 1,065 acres on which GIFT City stands, 741 acres belong to GIFT City Company Ltd, a government-owned entity in Gujarat, while the remainder is private land. When the project was first developed, the land, much of it wasteland, was acquired by the state government as part of a joint venture with IL&FS. After IL&FS exited the project in June 2020, the project is now wholly owned by the Gujarat government.
“The skyline of the expanded area will remain the same as that of a GIFT city. The buildings and infrastructure – which includes automatic waste collection, underground facilities, etc. – will remain the same,” Ray said.
Currently, GIFT City employs 20,000 people in banking, financial services and information technology. About 50 percent of the area is developed or in various stages of development. However, there are only about 300 residents, mostly blue-collar workers such as technicians, carpenters, plumbers, maintenance staff and their families. This is because most of the residential projects are under construction and not yet occupied.
In November 2022, GIFT City Company Ltd sent a proposal to the Government of Gujarat to extend GIFT City Limits. However, the expanded area will not be under the ownership of GIFT Company Ltd, but is expected to be developed in accordance with the development control regulations of the GIFT Urban Development Authority (GIFT UDA). He heads the Gujarat Urban Development and Housing Section GIFT-UDA which was formed in 2012 and has separate rules for urban building compared to the rest of Gujarat. GIFT UDA does not follow the General Development Control Rules (GDCR) applicable to all cities in Gujarat – since GIFT City is a new city and is set to grow vertically.
Once the proposed expansion is complete, GIFT’s city limits will extend to National Highway 48 on the east side and the Sabarmati River bed on the west. On the northern side, the city will extend up to the Gandhinagar bypass road, while on the southern side, a new road will be built connecting the PDEU Bridge, which leads to the southern entrance of GIFT City, to NH-48.
Rai said GIFT City along with the Gujarat government were also planning to develop the “social infrastructure” and “evening life” within this green city which is currently dominated by the footprint of employees working in office space. Once residents occupy the condominiums under construction – about 4,500 condominiums are currently being built – GIFT City also plans to develop Central Park, recreational areas, shopping malls, theaters and other entertainment areas. Currently, the school is already functioning, while a hospital is being built. Apart from this, GIFT City already has its own fire station, automatic garbage collection unit, underground utility tunnels, dedicated power plant, district cooling system, piped drinking water, command and control center, and data center. 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 companies, alternative investment fund, banks, broker-dealers, clearing companies, insurance and reinsurance companies, qualified jewelers, ship charter companies and more. On Monday, SGX Nifty’s full trading volumes shifted to GIFT IFSC as it began trading as GIFT Nifty.
GIFT City also expects to restore about 60 acres through the Sabarmati River Front development, along the lines of the Ahmedabad City River Front, for which bids have been launched.
A total of 741 acres of the total area of GIFT City owned by GIFT City Company Ltd. is being developed. “The private landowners who own the 226 acres under the GIFT master plan do not have any regulation under which they can be developed,” Ray said. Currently, GIFT City has an earmarked investment of Rs 14,500 crore. This is based on the sale of development rights in the project as the 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 are already allocated. About 50 percent of the land owned by GIFT has been allocated for development. Of the 24 million square feet already allocated, four million are built sq ft (16 buildings) while an additional 27 buildings of about 9-10 million sq ft are under construction. This will be ready in another three years. The remaining 10 million sq ft is under planning,” Ray added.
GIFT City’s infrastructure includes schools, hotels, clubs, and a proposed overseas campus for foreign universities. Earlier this year, Australia-based Deakin and Wollongong Universities announced the construction of GIFT campuses and the start of operations from June 2024. Parks and gardens are proposed and the city will eventually be connected to Ahmedabad by a metro train. The city has an automated waste collection system, a district cooling system, a city command and control center, and piped drinking water.
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