Mumbai : The proposed International Financial Service Centre (IFSC) at Bandra-Kurla Complex is being projected as a business hub that would complement the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City in Gandhinagar, and will not function as its competitor, officials of Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority have said.
Mumbai being the financial capital and a hub for major financial activities, an IFSC coming up in the city is being seen as a game-changer that could take the fizz out of the state-of-the-art 359-hectares Central Business District in Gujarat.
According to senior state government officials, earlier, there was also a suggestion from state finance ministry to let GIFT City gain momentum for at least a year and then proceed with the IFSC for Mumbai. The vision of GIFT City was laid out by Prime Minister Narendra Modi while he was serving as the chief minister of Gujarat.
“They [the two finance centres] were seen by many as being pitted against each other and the message from Union Finance Ministry and the state was quite clear that it should not be projected in that fashion. We have to project Mumbai IFSC as a complementing hub to GIFT City,” said a senior bureaucrat, on condition of anonymity.
MMRDA, which is the nodal agency for the project, has already allocated 20 hectares of plot in the plush business district of Bandra-Kurla Complex. UPS Madan, Metropolitan Commissioner for MMRDA said, “This is what we feel, both [GIFT and IFSC] should be complementing each other and not competing.”
An IFSC is an area which is outside the jurisdiction of the domestic economy and is set up to facilitate easy flow of finance, financial services and products.
Last week, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis met finance minister Arun Jaitley to push IFSC. “The chief minister has met the finance minister and minister of state (finance); it [IFSC project] has moved further and they have also shown willingness to take it up. The finance ministry feels that BKC is the right place for this kind of Centre,” said Madan.
To keep the sway of GIFT City intact, officials are also contemplating options of segregating services between the two IFSCs. “We can segregate the services; while some services can remain in Mumbai others can go to GIFT City—such as the insurance sector is a more interdependent thing and can stay in Mumbai while the government-type can go to GIFT,” the bureaucrat added.
Meanwhile, the MMRDA has sent a formal proposal to the Ministry of Commerce & Industries seeking declaration of SEZ for IFSC in BKC. “We have written to the Commerce Ministry about declaring it a SEZ and to consider the minimum area required (50 hectares) as built-up rather than open space,” Madan said.
As per norms, the minimum area required for the declaration of SEZ is 50 hectares, and the plot allotted by MMRDA is short by 30 hectares.
“G-Text block (site of the proposed IFSC) is 34 hectares while net area is 20 hectares. Based on the discussions with the commerce ministry, they seem agreeable to consider our proposal,” the bureaucrat said.
[alert type=”e.g. warning, danger, success, info” title=””]Interdependent services such as the insurance sector can stay in Mumbai while govt-dependent sectors can go to GIFT City.[/alert]
