Mumbai: The NDA as well as the UPA governments at the Centre are equally responsible for shattering Mumbai’s aspirations of becoming a world-class international financial centre on par with the likes of New York, Singapore and London, State Industry Minister Subhash Desai told The Hindu .
The State government will continue to pursue the city’s development as an international financial centre (IFC), despite the Centre’s recent assertion that Mumbai can only be considered for IFC status after the development of the Gujarat International Financial Tech (GIFT) City in Gandhinagar.
The Minister, among the closest aides of Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, stressed it was the Centre’s generous helping hand to the Gujarat government that led to the IFC plan’s shift from Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla complex to Gandhinagar. “It is very clear that the Centre gave preference to Gujarat and Ahmedabad, and now the GIFT city is all set. It was snatched from Maharashtra. The Gujarat government grabbed it as if to play spoilsport, and the Centre helped them.”
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Mr. Desai blamed the earlier Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) government for not being able to implement the Mumbai plan, despite having a blueprint for the city’s development as an IFC since 2007.
A high-powered expert committee formed by the Union Finance Ministry had submitted a report to the Centre on making Mumbai an IFC, but the UPA government just sat on its recommendations. “They should have implemented the plan during their 10-year tenure,” Mr Desai said.
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The expert committee had noted that they had “more concerns about meeting Mumbai’s ‘large urban governance challenges”, even as it mooted an overhaul of India’s taxation policies and financial market regulations. “If Mumbai is to host an IFC, then its infrastructure deficiencies need to be resolved quickly, and not through arabesques such as the Navi Mumbai SEZ (special economic zone)... If that is not done, then the pursuit of an IFC in Mumbai will remain a pipe dream that will be impossible to convert into reality. Locating it in an SEZ is not a viable option,” the report had warned.
‘Can’t have too many IFCs’
“Mumbai cannot be left behind and we are discussing how to push our plans to create an IFC. After all, this is the financial capital of the country. We will need the Centre’s help, but the State has to take the lead,” Mr. Desai said, taking on the Opposition’s criticism of the Devendra Fadnavis government for its failure in securing an IFC status for the city.
Late last December, in reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said though the Maharashtra government is lobbying hard for an IFC at Mumbai’s Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), there is a limit on the number of IFCs one can have, so another can only be considered after the GIFT City IFC has been ‘optimally used’.
The Congress had referred to Mr. Jaitley’s comments to criticise Mr. Fadnavis, claiming he had known all along that the Centre would set up the IFC in Gujarat.
“It was claimed that 50,000 square hectares is needed to set up an IFC, and Mumbai had only 38,000 square hectares,” Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary Sachin Sawant had said.