GANDHINAGAR, India-- Gujarat International Finance Tec-City: 400m, 310m x2, 200+m x10

[Jai]

Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT), Ahmedabad, India



The Indian Skyscraper Race is ON.

This last year has been big for Indian architecture and development fans. A total of 7 megaprojects with supertall towers have been either approved or beginning construction (sadly, only a handful of them with renderings released), each of them vying to grab the coveted title of "India's Tallest Building."

But this latest project, located at Gandhinagar, the capital city of the über-industrial Indian state of Gujarat, and nearby the state's commercial capital of Ahmedabad, its a home-run hit deep to left field (or maybe I should try to speak in cricket terms... a deep sixer(??)) Why? Although it may not necessarily win the title of India's tallest building (not for long anyway), the project certainly has all the megaprojects made public beat in terms of sheer massing and scale.





^ Views of the CBD and skyline

Boasting 17 high rise commercial buildings -- the tallest being the signature 80-storey, 400m "Diamond Tower" -- as well as an artificial island, integrated mass transit and dedicated expressways, residential townships, and dedicated power supply, the 500 acre GIFT aims to be Global Financial Services hub. The project, is being developed by the Gujarat Finance City Development Company Ltd, a 50:50 joint venture between the Gujarat government and Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS) as a Public-Private partnership, will employ 400,000 people and house 50,000 residents.





^ Perspective and View of the GIFT skyline

Arguably India's most economically proactive and reform-minded state, Gujarat's second-tier metropolises have chafed under the shadow of nearby Maharashtra state's (and India's) financial capital of Mumbai. It is this rivalry that has triggered the rapid industrialization of the state and the vision and drive to try to directly compete with India's biggest city (though with a population of 5.7 million, the Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar urban agglomeration is no slouch either.)



The Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, well placed between the political and commercial capitals of Gujarat, was conceived as the beginning of that competition. Designed to kick Mumbai in the FDI balls, GIFT is developed as India's first major supertall CBD project that is designed to be the focal point of India's booming financial services market -- in direct competition with Mumbai -- by providing companies with all those things Mumbai is still developing: comprehensive infrastructure, power, verticalized office space, and a well designed, planned and expandable urban form. Its strong proximity and infrastructure connectivity with Mumbai ensures that mutually beneficial development occurs between the two metros.





The project is being planned to be at or above par with presently acknowledged globally benchmarked financial centers such as Shinjuku (Tokyo), Lujiazui (Shanghai), La Defense (Paris) and Dockyards (London). Size-wise too, at over 7.5 million sq. feet of built up space in Phase 1 of the project alone, it is almost twice as massive as in Shinjuku, Luijiazui, La Defense and Dockyards combined! However, with India's financial sector employing 10 million people by 2020, it hardly puts a dent in the 800 million sq feet of office space needed for this industry alone... implies what big things are in store for Indian commercial development in the near future!


__ ____________________
^ Views of the highrises and of Diamond Tower

Inspired by the boom cities of China, the city is being masterplanned by East China Architectural Design & Research Institute (ECADI), which is responsible for planning much of Shanghai, and Fairwood Consultants India, one of India's largest and fastest growing consulting firms. According to Mr Yao Wen Lin, board chairman of ECADI, Gujarat International Finance Tec-City will be designed "to a standard that would be superior to one in Shanghai, China".



^ Riverfront recreational and greenspace development

GIFT is designed as an extremely environmentally friendly development that will have the lowest per capital energy consumption of any Indian metro. The project itself will boast an impressive green area covering 65% of the total land, in large part due to the number of skyscrapers. In addition, the area long the Sabarmati River's banks will be developed into a riverfront recreational area, complementing the riverfront developments planned for Ahmedabad. The project will also boast a museum, large conference center and gardens on the man made Fortune Island, where Diamond Tower is located. In addition to expressway linkages, GIFT will also boast underground arterial road, as well as MRTS/LRTS/BRTS connections and abundant parking.




Phase 1 of the project, which will begin construction in March, 2008 and to be completed by 2010, will consist of the 400m Diamond Tower and the core CBD of GIFT, comprising a total of 25.8 million sq ft. Already, 15 million sq ft. of the floorspace of this first phase has already been secured by a host of national and international companies, with MOUs for the other 10 million in the works. Two more phases will then be rolled out for an eventual 2017 completion date.




Exciting times for the Indian architecture enthusiast indeed!

Cheers,
Jai

[ab041937]

The project looks too ambitious at the moment. I seriously doubt if it'll go through.

[Rico Rommheim]

Jesus that's no project, that's a city on its own! Is it entirely privately funded? Where's all the $$$ coming from?

[PLUS]

No mention of the finance involved ? Ahmedabad is not exactly a financial capital.
This projects look unlikely to get off the ground.

[MINUS]

We expect more business from government, public sector
Sep 13 2009

By Darlington Jose Hector
Cisco India managing director Naresh Wadhwa is a busier man these days with recessionary pressures tapering off. He tells Darlington Jose Hector that government and public sector units will prop up an otherwise lethargic market.
Excerpts:

A year ago, when you spoke to Financial Chronicle, the recession had just kicked in. How do you assess the situation now from a Cisco viewpoint

Cisco’s financial year runs from August to July, and the recession fell right in between. From September the ripple effects of recession started showing, the SME segment started delaying decisions and the election phase slowed down the decision-making processes further. The IT services companies are still continuing to struggle, but it is also possible that they will be the first to come out of this slump. SMEs are continuing to adopt a wait-and-watch policy. But the shift will happen from the government and public sector points of view. There will be more business coming from these two sectors. In fact, Cisco hopes to see double the business emerging from these two segments.

What kind of business opportunities are you seeing with the government and public sectors?
There is this drive to secure citizens, and that’s a major initiative. Securing government installations, deploying sensors and indulging in smart analytics are key moves. With government spending increasing we expect that for the next 3-4 quarters, the government and public sectors will be our biggest clients, though I can’t reveal the revenues generated from them due to competitive reasons. We are also trying to bring our best practices to this sector, but tailored to Indian conditions.

What are the kind of lessons the company imbibed during this phase?
Cisco believes in bringing business relevancy to its clients. We partner companies in their endeavour to develop transformational business models. So we are not just box providers who expect clients then to just carry on with their business.

What kind of work is Cisco doing in relation to community services in India?
We are working with the government to help put together data centres in districts. Cisco is also engaged in a big way with community service centres. There is a lot of work happening on smart connected communities too. In Gujarat, Cisco has tied up with the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City Company (GIFT) to develop a financial services centre with infrastructure and facilities benchmarked to global standards. GIFT promises to be a central business hub, not just for India, but also for the rest of the world. The city is designed to provide next-level infrastructure, services and platforms backed by state-of-the art information and communication technology (ICT), secured and resilient data centres, integrated and intelligent townships with high-tech city services management.

Can you elaborate on the work done on smart connected communities?

Today, hundreds of different systems and protocols across an urban centre are not interoperable. If these systems converge onto a single open-systems based network, significant opportunities for productivity, growth and innovation can be unleashed. The smart connected communities initiative brings together a broad portfolio of partnerships, products, services, and solutions to address this significant emerging opportunity using the network as the platform. It changes the way cities, towns and villages are designed, built, managed and renewed to achieve economic and social sustainability.

Will Cisco India start to hire again soon?
There has been a pause in hiring for some time, and unless we find opportunities which call for hiring we will not do so. At present, we are more concerned about skill upgradation of employees.

Source

[mannu12]

http://www.moneylife.in/article/8/8921.html