Gift City An Ambitious Project

GIFT City (Gujarat International Finance Tec City) is an over ambitious project of Gujarat State Government. Plan was unveiled at the Global Summit of Vibrant Gujarat held in Ahmedabad. Most of the space of Gujarat GIFT city was sold as per MOU on the day of the summit itself.
The Gujarat GIFT City is located just 12 Km. from the Gujarat’s Current Financial Capital Ahmedabad. The City would be located near NH 8 with 6 Lanes Road Network. The lanes would be increased once CITY materialized on ground. The city can be viewed from Google Earth at the geographical co-ordinate of 23°9’26”N 72°41’12”E. On the west of GIFT City, Sabarmati River would flow while on east, NH 8 would be located.

Total 85,000,000 sq ft (7,900,000 m2) of space would be developed in the GIFT City. Entire CITY Plan would be built on 550 acres (222.57 ha). MOU for almost entire area were signed in the Global Summit of 2009.

GIFT City if ever realized would take at least 10 years from the day construction work start. Currently progress is getting lot of intervention because of finance crises. Although there has been still some work going on which reflect progress to be in continuous stage rather on hold. The architecture work of the GIFT City has been awarded to Chinese company East China Architectural Design & Research Institute (ECADI) who was responsible for the designs of Shanghai.

Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has already given contract for creating barrages on the Sabarmati River just before GIFT City Area so that Water can be provided 365 days on the bridges which would be built on GIFT City.

For the development of GIFT City, Gujarat Govt. formed Gujarat International Finance Tec-City Company Limited with joint venture of State owned Gujarat Urban Development Company Limited (GUDCOL) and private sector company Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS). The company plans to develop and create finance, implement all infrastructures in and around GIFT CITY on a world class turnkey basis to ensure that all conceivable services in relation to connectivity, technology, communication, security, services for quality of life etc. are established and sustained.

The CITY would have most advance technology, infrastructure, skyscrapers, buildings, residential areas as well green areas. The CITY would serve as back bone for all financial companies of India and world having business in India. It will also have the Software Technology Park of India (STPI) and Special Economic Zones.

The CITY is thought to be fully air conditioner with centralized AC system, called District Cooling. It will be more efficient than regular Air Conditioner and would also use very less electricity for this purpose. 1000 Mega Watt Electricity line would be under ground for electrify whole city. The reliability is estimated to be around 99.98% with just 6 minutes of outage in a year if ever happens. The work of Electrify has been awarded to Hong Kong Electric Company. The power grid of the Electricity would be done by ABB Group having its base in Switzerland.

GIFT CITY will have a world class Internet Gateway, the next generation IP-based network with International Fiber Landing System. The system would be provided by UK’s BT Group plc.

Transportation system of GIFT city will be of multi-way. GIFT Authority aims to provide transportation network which ensures accessibility, security, easy & fast mobility with zero road accidental deaths. For this below have been suggested:

• Using a multimodal mix of Transport systems (MRTS/LRTS/BRT, etc.) for both inter region (Ahmedabad, Airport, Gandhinagar and the City) and intra-city.
• Using walk-to-work concept as part of urban planning with a nodal split of 10:90 between private and public transport.
• Use of electric Personnel Rapid Transport systems within the City.

Currently only active Personnel Rapid Transport systems is in Morgantown, West Virginia, USA. Although lots of other cities have shown interest to develop similar transit system.

GIFT promises to be a Central Business Hub, not just for India but also for the rest of the world. Bestowed with world class infrastructure, it is poised to set a new paradigm of Urban Planning.

The development of GIFT offers a significant opportunity to be a test-bed to drive reforms and innovation in various fields including in delivery systems, local government, physical planning, infrastructure development, environmental protection and so on. Getting these foundation principles right is crucial to plan and execute the development strategies.