Mumbai: Over a month after Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley ruled out having an International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in Mumbai, the State government is all set to give its approval to the master plan for the financial centre at the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC).
The approval will be provided by a special task force which is meeting in a week’s time to finalise the blueprint now integrated with the alignment for the National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL), also known as the bullet train.
Kaustubh Dhavse, chairman of the task force and officer on special duty to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, confirmed the development. “Yes, that is true,” he said.
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The master plan has been prepared by a consortium of Tata Consulting Engineers and Townland Consultants of Hong Kong, officials said.
Mr. Jaitely had, in his budget speech, said that the IFSC will come up in Gujarat and not Mumbai, but the statement was later contradicted by Mr. Fadnavis who said the financial capital is the ideal location for such a centre.
The Congress had even raised the issue of claims made in Mr. Jaitley’s speech through a calling attention motion in the Legislative Council. Mr. Fadnavis then announced two task forces to advise the Centre on the IFSC. The first one led by SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya was to address all financial and technical requirements of the IFSC, while the second task force headed by Mr. Dhavse was to look into the legal and planning aspects.
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The planning for the financial centre was pushed behind schedule by nearly a year after the alignment for the NHSRCL was altered twice.
But the government, task force members said, completed transfer formalities for handing over 0.9 hectare of permanent land and 3.3 hectares of temporary land at BKC to the NHSRCL on April 20.
“This was done by the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority through a letter on February 26,” a report on the IFSC said. Officials said the allotment was approved by the Railway Minister on April 20, paving the way for completing the remaining formalities.
The State and the Ministry of Railways had been at loggerheads over the location of the terminus for the bullet train. While the Railways insisted that the Mumbai station be constructed underground at the BKC, the State argued the land was reserved for the IFSC much before the terminus was planned.
To break the logjam, the State even suggested two alternative locations at Kurla. The NHSRCL ruled out the prospect of the bullet train rolling into Kurla’s Lokmanya Tilak Terminus on the ground there are far too many slums in the area.
The government even said if the NHSRCL did not find the two alternative locations technically feasible, they would make available the originally-proposed land at the BKC. The then chief secretary, Swadheen Kshatriya, insisted in a letter to the Railways that acquisition of land will not be an issue since they (Railways) are the owners of the land at Kurla. The CM also conveyed to the Railways that the government could invest in sprucing up Kurla, such as widening roads and removing congestion, officials said.