Gift City would embody the government’s Aatmanirbhar project: Survey

Gift City, India’s gateway to global finance, would not only be an instrument for capital flows, but also make a “quantum leap” that would embody the government’s Aatmanirbhar project, the country’s chief economic adviser V Anantha Nageswaran said in the latest Economic Survey.

“The government’s vision for GIFT-IFSC transcends much beyond traditional finance and ventures into thought leadership,” the survey says. “It is envisioned as the embodiment of Aatmanirbhar Bharat, a hub of ingenuity and innovation. The vision is to transform GIFT City into a bustling financial hub, a vibrant city bearing a distinctively international character and pioneering solutions to complex problem statements involving finance.”

The Centre has an outlay of Rs 800 crore for the facility, the report states. The survey adds that setting up and operationalising India’s maiden International Financial Service Centre (IFSC) in GIFT City has been a path-breaking financial reform underpinning India’s increasingly liberal outlook towards capital account convertibility. GIFT-IFSC is housed in India’s first fully operational smart city with world-class commercial, social and physical infrastructure.

To bolster the development of IFSC, the government took a major policy decision to establish the first of its kind, unified and agile financial sector regulator, the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) through an Act of Parliament in 2019.

IFSCA has assumed the power of four domestic sector re gulators, namely RBI, SEBI, IRDAI & Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority of India (PFRDAI), in so far as the development and regulation of IFSCs in India are concerned.

“Over the last two years, GIFT-IFSC has witnessed tremendous growth and traction across the entire spectrum of financial services,” the survey states.