Modi's pet project GIFT likely to create one million jobs

GIFT city aspires to cater to India's large financial services potential by offering global firms a world-class infrastructure and facilities

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet project Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) has the potential to generate over one million jobs by 2022, an official said.    

GIFT city, which is being developed by the Gujarat government, aspires to cater to India’s large financial services potential by offering global firms a world-class infrastructure and facilities.    

“It is a pet project of Narendra Modi. He was monitoring it personally when he was the Chief Minister. What we are doing is that we are implementing his brainchild. New Chief Minister Anandiben Patel has also been a part of the project. If you take the job potential in expanding economy of the country, on a pan-India basis about one million jobs can be created,” said, Ramakant Jha, GIFT Managing Director (MD) and Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO).    

The Rs  65,000-crore project is being developed on the lines of global financial services centres, spread over three phases of development to be completed by 2022.    

GIFT city has two components of development — domestic financial centre and international financial services centre.    It is being developed on 886 acres of land, of which 673 acres is in possession of GIFT. It has multi-services Special Economic Zone (SEZ) of 250 acres and domestic finance centre and associated social infrastructure on 423 acres.    

The state-of-the-art GIFT city will be supported by all basic urban infrastructure comprising external connectivity by roads, metro and BRTS, Jha said.    

GIFT is conceptualised as a global financial and IT services hub on the lines of globally benchmarked financial centres such as Shinjuku, Tokyo, Lujiazui, Shanghai, La Defense, Paris, and London Dockyards, he added. The project is located on the bank of Sabarmati river and is around 12 km from Ahmedabad International Airport.    

Jha said many banks and IT companies have already established their offices there.

The Gujarat government is developing GIFT city through a joint venture between its undertaking Gujarat Urban Development Company Ltd (GUDCL) and Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS).