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Fadnavis 'sold out' Maharashtra's interests on IFSC: Congress
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SME Times News Bureau | 24 Mar, 2018
A day after Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis informed the
Assembly that he would build an International Financial Services Centre
(IFSC) here, the Congress on Saturday termed it as "an absolute lie" and
accused him of selling out the state's interests.
"This is an
absolute lie and the CM is simply fooling the people of Mumbai and
Maharashtra. It is clearly impossible to build an IFSC in the Bandra
Kurla Complex since a business hub of this magnitude requires an area of
at least 50 hectares as stipulated by international norms," Mumbai
Congress President Sanjay Nirupam said.
Accusing Fadnavis of
having "sold out" the state's interests to further Prime Minister
Narendra Modi's Gujarat concerns, he demanded to know whether there is
such a huge space available in the BKC to set up a world-class IFSC.
"From
the CM's statement in the assembly, it appears he intends to build
another World Trade Centre at best and pass it off as an IFSC... This is
like taking the people of Mumbai for a ride," he said.
Nirupam
pointed out that it was under the erstwhile UPA Government that Mumbai
was selected to set up the country's first IFSC on the lines of New
York, London, Dubai, Singapore, Shanghai or Tokyo.
However, this
was shifted to Gujarat after the Bharatiya Janata Party assumed power in
2014, causing a huge potential loss of business to Mumbai.
Union
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had also categorically stated in
Parliament that the proposed IFSC will be developed only in Gujarat and
the country cannot have multiple such centres.
"This is the truth
and all that Fadnavis is speaking now is to mask the truth and
comtradicting his own party's finance minister," Nirupam said.
It
was during the UPA regime that a special panel of the World Bank in
2007 had submitted a report selected Mumbai as the IFSC's site.
However
soon after the Modi government came to power, the IFSC was moved to the
neigbouring state as 'Gujarat International Financial Tec-City' (GIFT),
to the detriment of Mumbai, Nirupam added.
In fact, on January
11 this year, Reserve Bank Of India Governor Urjit Patel celebrated the
successful establishment of India's first ever IFSC at the GIFT City, in
Gandhinagar.
Terming it as the first such IFSC in the world to
be launched after the 2008 global financial crisis, Patel said the RBI
is working closely with all the stakeholders on diverse subjects for the
development of the GIFT city.
In October, the Global Financial
Centres Index 22 listed GIFT-IFSC at the 10th rank - ahead of
Luxembourg, Seoul, Abu Dhabi, Toronto and Beijing - of the 15 IFSCs in
the world, and growing at a rapid pace.
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