Skip to main content

Gujarat's GIFT project falters: Airport authority's 5-year NOC to 35 towers "expires", only two built

The "proposed" GIFT smart city
A fresh document, obtained by a Gujarat-based right to information (RTI) activist, Roshan Shah on October 8, has revealed how very slow is the progress in implementing the pet "smart city" project floated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s when he was Gujarat chief minister – Gujarat International Finance Tec-city (GIFT). Envisaged in 2007, there are just two towers in the GIFT premises, one of which has partially started functioning.
The document reveals that the Airport Authority of India (AAI) had granted no-objection certificate (NOC) to GIFT’s 35 towers for five years as on May 21, 2010. While the five-year period has expired, the AAI reply suggests, so far it has not received any fresh applications for renewing NOC of building heights on behalf of GIFT.
The May 21, 2010 NOC, granted to 35 buildings, each of them having the “permissible top elevation” of anywhere between 175.6 metres and 191 metres above mean sea level (MAMSL), had said that the “certificate is valid for a period of five years from the date of issue”, and if “the building structure/chimney is not constructed and completed” in the five years, “it will be required to obtain fresh NOC from chairman, AAI.”
The distance between the Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport and the GIFT city is 18.5 kilmetres on a straight road, one reason why NOC needed to be taken. Now being tom-tommed as a smart city, off Gandhinagar, of the 35 towers for which NOC was obtained, just two have so far come up.
An earlier RTI plea by Shah, seeking to know as to which MNCs have so far booked space in GIFT City, how much of square feet of space had been  booked, how much token amount for booking of the space had been paid, and when would the MNCs start their operations, was summarily rejected.
Dated July 16, 2015, the rejection letter said, the GIFT SEZ Ltd is "duly incorporated under the provisions of the Companies Act, 1956", and is therefore "not a public authority" under the provisions of the RTI Act, and therefore provisions of the RTI are "not applicable to GIFT SEZ Ltd, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the GIFT Company Ltd. 
A document of the Gujarat government, which is a partner in the GIFT project alongside Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS), says that there will be two “landmark buildings” in the GIFT premises with a height above 350 metres, 19 buildings with a height between 150 metres and to 300 metres, and 73 buildings with a height between 100 metres and 140 metres.
A GIFT document claiming itself as the best international destination
While critics have long doubted viability of GIFT, with founder of India’s telecom revolution Sam Pitroda predicting that it might turn out to be “real estate haven”, a top GIFT document claims that, in terms of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), the project is more viable than those already implemented in New York, London, Shanghai, Paris, Singapore and Tokyo.
Those who have been to GIFT to have an overview have noticed that there are “scarcely 20 cars in the car park”, and the “the busiest floor in Tower 1 turned out to be exactly like large offices in Mumbai or New Delhi on a public holiday, i.e. employees were few and far between”, and “tenants include Bank of Baroda, Syndicate Bank and ncode, which offers data services security.”
One of the “advantages” being cited for GIFT is not only its “plush architectural model of a smart city”, but visitors notice that GIFT has “no restaurants”, and “in a state where alcohol cannot be consumed without a medical or a special tourist permit, no bars.”
“What it offers is low rents”, it is pointed out, adding, “But, as Sebastian Morris, a professor at the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad points out, ‘Financial services can afford very high rents.’ Indeed, New York, London and Hong Kong have among the highest office rents in the world, but that does not deter them from being the premier financial centres they are.”
Meanwhile, reports say that GIFT, whose just-completed second tower was to be the pioneer of making India to become a “global” reinsurance hub, might not be offered any tax incentives to the insurers and reinsurers setting up offices in the area. Already, large companies such as General Insurance Corporation of India, have presence at GIFT City. Some private insurers have also expressed interest to set up offices there.
“We have been told separate tax incentives will not be provided for setting up offices in GIFT City. This could be a dampener for many Indian insurers and foreign reinsurers to set up presence here,” said a senior industries department official has been quoted as saying.

Comments

TRENDING

When Pakistanis whispered: ‘end military rule’ — A Moscow memoir

During the recent anti-terror operation inside Pakistan by the Government of India, called Operation Sindoor — a name some feminists consider patently patriarchal, even though it’s officially described as a tribute to the wives of the 26 husbands killed in the terrorist strike — I was reminded of my Moscow stint, which lasted for seven long years, from 1986 to 1993.

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.