Mumbai Development Body Plans For Global Financial Hub

Even as the Maharashtra and the Central Governments are yet to arrive at consentover handing over property for the proposed bullet train plan, the MMRDA today said it has received three bids for preparing a master plan for an IFSC in the tony BKC region here.

The (MMRDA) Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority has received bids from a corporation of Tata Consulting Engineers and Townland Consultant of Hong Kong, INI Design Studio of Ahmedabad, and Ramboll and Henning Larsen Architects of Denmark, the state-run planning agency said.

The Devandra Fadnavis government in Maharashtra is forcing for an International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) at the (BKC) Bandra-Kurla Complex to make the State a global financial hub.

The bidders will prepare a, master plan for the project, MMRDA said.

The IFSC plan come under controversy over the site of originating station of the proposed Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train that will cost nearly Rs 1 Trillion, most of which will be funded by the Japan international Agency.

Officials from the Railways, Maharashtra and the MMRDA have held meetings to break the stalemate but there has been no solution. It is expected that consultants will sit together and work out a solution.

The Railway has proposed to construct an underground station for the showpiece bullet train at the spot in BKC where the state has identified 50 acres for the IFSC.

The bullet train project needs only less than 20 acres of this for its underground station.

The State Government, however, has been reluctant to provide the land, having planned the IFSC on the vacant property in the business district located in suburbs.