Business hub takes shape in Bombay marshland
Business hub takes shape in Bombay marshland
By Madhu Nainan
BOMBAY (AFP): Bombay's dream of rivaling Hong Kong as a global
business hub is taking shape on 100 hectares (247 acres) of
reclaimed marshland at the center of the oblong-shaped
metropolis.
The International Finance and Business Center (IFBC) in the
Bandra-Kurla area of the port city, when completed, will be on
par with the world's best business townships, its developers
said.
The city within a city is the most ambitious government real
estate project since India launched sweeping economic reforms in
1991, turning its back on 44 years of protectionism and opening
the doors to foreign investors.
Devbrat Mehta, chief of the Bombay Metropolitan Regional
Development Authority, said the IFBC would serve as the corporate
capital for businesses attracted by reforms in India's huge
market.
"We will soon be the prime location for international
business," he said in an interview.
"Bombay is the ideal place for a global business and financial
center," he said. "With Hong Kong going under Chinese rule in
1997, there will be no global business center between Tokyo and
New York."
Work on the project started last year and is on schedule. The
IFBC will be "fully operational" in about three years' time,
Mehta said.
The project has sent real estate prices soaring in the Bandra-
Kurla area, where office space sells now for 15,000 rupees (US $
500) per square foot, up from 1,200 rupees ($ 40) in 1990.
It is cheap compared to Nariman Point, a tongue of land
reclaimed from the Arabian Sea and converted into a concrete
jungle which serves as the current Bombay corporate center.
Office space there rents for 22,000 rupees ($ 733) a square
foot.
The IFBC will not be just another concrete and glass forest,
Mehta stressed, adding that 3,000 residential apartments have
also been planned.
"This is part of our new strategy not to segregate residential
and business districts. We want the place to be used 24 hours. It
should be lively throughout, unlike a purely business district,"
said Mehta.
He compared the development of the center to the redevelopment
of Battery Park in New York or the London Docklands.
"Land use will be planned scientifically as land is a very
precious commodity in Bombay.
"We will have wide roads, flyovers, parking lots and a whole
set of amenities, pedestrian plazas and shopping malls, fire
brigade and ambulance services, schools, hospitals and health
centers."
Dedicated power plants and state-of-the-art telecommunications
facilities are planned for the complex to make it autonomous and
reduce its reliance on creaking state-owned facilities.
The IFBC is being laid out just a few kilometers (miles) from
Asia's largest slum, Dharavi.
It will be bound by the Mahim Nature park which is home to 60
species of migratory birds, by a wooded walkway along the Mithi
river and by a mangrove swamp the developers will leave
undisturbed, Mehta said.
Asia's largest convention center, with a seating capacity of
5,000, and a luxury hotel will be a part of the center, he said.
Major business enterprises such as the Unit Trust of India,
the country's largest mutual fund, the Tata group and the
Computer Maintenance Corp., have already booked premises at the
IFBC.
India's first diamond bourse and the fully computerized
National Stock Exchange are coming up at the site, where 300
companies have applied for space.
And Mehta hopes it will help decongest the chaotic Nariman
Point. "Businesses wanting to expand would have to come here as
there is no other place available in Bombay," he said.