India’s 2030 CWG Bid Puts GIFT City on Fast-Track Growth Path

Gujarat's Gandhinagar district's central business hub, GIFT (Gujarat International Finance Tec) City, has received more attention as a result of Ahmedabad's successful bid for the 2030 Commonwealth Games last week. Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat at the time, came up with the concept to construct an international financial centre on a greenfield site in 2007.

The government turned GIFT into a wholly state-owned business during the first several years of sluggish growth and setbacks. The state established the physical foundations, including large roadways, a riverbank edge, and possibly the most sophisticated subterranean utility infrastructure in the nation, by carving off a contiguous 3-square-kilometre (900-acre) tract along the Sabarmati by 2011. The International Financial Services Centre Authority (IFSCA), a single regulator for banking, insurance, funds, aircraft leasing, and other offshore financial activities, was established by the Centre in 2020, marking a significant change.

Massive Construction Drive at GIFT City

Approximately 27,000 individuals enter the city every day from about 25 buildings that are currently operating and nearly completely occupied. There are now 37 more towers being built. For the time being, GIFT is more of a place of employment than a residence, although this is starting to change. Over 7,000 homes are being built, and over 930 dwellings have already been delivered. According to Yogesh C. Bhavsar, president of the National Real Estate Development Council (Gujarat), GIFT City's next stage of growth will be accelerated by the combination of impending international events, the expansion of foreign university campuses, and steady organic urbanisation. Ahmedabad's real estate market is currently almost 60–70% saturated.

According to Loveleen Garg, GIFT City's chief planner and vice president of planning, the long-term goal is to eventually support a population density of roughly 250,000 people per square kilometre, which is similar to Navi Mumbai's. GIFT is making investments in public areas to draw in inhabitants now that the physical infrastructure is in place.

Along the enlarged riverside, a 27-acre Central Park is being developed. A golf driving range, jogging and cycling routes, plazas, lawns, an amphitheatre, and courts for basketball, box cricket, soccer, and pickleball will all be included. To encourage residents and employees to use common areas, a special food zone with eateries and kiosks is also planned.

Beefing up the Connectivity

Improved connection, according to officials, will turn GIFT into a busy, little metropolis in the next years. As part of the Ahmedabad–Gandhinagar line extension, two new metro stations have been approved, and a direct road connection to the airport should reduce travel time to roughly ten minutes. Additionally, GIFT will be connected to the Sabarmati high-speed rail station.

When the Mumbai–Ahmedabad bullet train starts running, experts predict that it will take roughly two hours and fifteen minutes to get from GIFT to the Bandra-Kurla Complex. GIFT's meticulously designed subterranean infrastructure is what makes it unique. An underground utility tunnel, referred to by officials as the city's "nervous system", extends beneath the surface and carries fibre, power cables, district cooling pipelines, automated waste ducts, potable and recycled water, and more.

Of the 16 km proposed tunnel, about 5.5–5.7 km are finished. Fundamentally, GIFT's IFSC is developing into the offshore financial district that was originally intended. Today, the zone is home to 35 international banks and a quickly growing fund ecosystem that includes 320 investment funds under the management of 97 fund managers.