The Congress party has blamed Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for Mumbai losing out on setting up the International Financial Centre (IFC) and the delay in the city’s elevated rail corridor projects.
Sachin Sawant, general secretary, Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee, said, “Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has compromised the State’s interests. In 2007, the M. Balachandran-led high powered committee had said that Mumbai was the best place to set up the IFC.”
Mr. Sawant said Mr. Fadnavis misled the State’s voters and sat on the project for two-and-a-half years. He said, “Mr. Fadnavis knew all long that the Narendra Modi government would setup the IFC in Gujarat. It was claimed that 50,000 square hectares is needed to set up an IFC and Mumbai had an area of only 38,000 square hectares. In 2015, Congress leader P. Chidambaram exposed the Centre’s plan in an article, An alert for Mumbaikars to wake up to the reality of Mumbai’s IFC status plans being put off.”
Mr. Sawant also distributed copies of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s written reply in Parliament to a question raised by Ramsingh Rathawa, an MP from Gujarat. The reply stated that if many IFCs were created then their full potential would not be realised. Mr. Jaitley, in his statement, said Maharashtra had been consistently requesting that an IFC be set up in Bandra-Kurla Complex region. However, the first IFC would come up in Gandhinagar in Gujarat as it would house the first Gift City. Mr. Jaitely said, “Only after the optimum utilisation of Gift City and it’s full potential is realized can we think beyond that.”
Mr. Sawant said that despite Mumbai being home to the Bombay Stock Exchange and the corporate headquarters of most business houses in the country, the International Stock Exchange is now being set up in Gujarat. He said, “This is not the only instance where Maharashtra has lost out to its neighbour Gujarat. Earlier, government policy Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) also lost cargo and business traffic to Dwarka port in Gujarat. The fall in investments in Maharashtra following the move is evident from the statistics released by the Reserve Bank of India and Commerce Ministry.”
Mr. Sawant said eight days ago, the Centre put on the back burner the elevated rail corridor projects proposed between Churchgate and Virar stations on the Western Line and CST and Panvel stations on the Central Line. Mr. Sawant said, “Mumbai’s suburban rail network sees passenger traffic of 65 lakh every day. The ₹38,000-crore project under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project has been shelved under the pretext that it is financially not viable. However, the ₹1.10 lakh-crore bullet train project is likely to benefit Gujarat in a biog way.”
