‘Didn’t plan to float bids for IFSC now’

Following the announcement by Railway Board to have a Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train terminal at Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC), the chief minister’s office hurriedly ordered the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) to float tenders for appointing design consultants for the construction of International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) on the 20 hectares land reserved at BKC.

“The floating of tenders was not scheduled as we needed clarity from the Centre about Special Economic Zone (SEZ) norms relaxation. The state had requested the Centre to consider the 20 hectares of plot reserved at BKC as SEZ, though a minimum of 50 hectares of land are reserved for SEZs,” said a source from MMRDA on condition of anonymity.

The source further said that it was only two days after the Railway Board announced a bullet train terminal at BKC that the CMO directed MMRDA to float tenders on February on a priority basis.

IFSC is chief minister Devendra Fadnavis’ pet project whereas bullet train is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet project. Mr Fadnavis in the past two months has given different statements to media regarding the allotment of land to railways for the bullet train terminal.

On February 15, 2016, a day after the Railway Board announced the bullet train terminal at BKC, Mr Fadnavis told The Asian Age, ““I have informed railway minister Suresh Prabhu again that the land available at the BKC will be used for the IFSC and cannot be given for the bullet train terminal. The IFSC is something that the world is looking forward to.”

Later, on February 18, 2016 Mr Fadnavis told The Asian Age, “The bullet train will be underground and hence, would not need the space set aside for the IFSC as IFSC will be above the ground.”

However, on March 3, 2016, a meeting between the state urban development department (UDD) and the MMRDA, both headed by Mr Fadnavis, concluded that the IFSC would be a huge building which will have three-floor underground car parking and it would be impossible to build an underground station for the high-speed railway on the same ground where the three-storied car parking has been proposed.

Later, on March 4, 2016, when Mr Fadnavis was reminded about the UDD and MMRDA’s conclusion that an underground station was not possible, he said, “We have conveyed it long back to the railways that they should look for other place.”

Sources from MMRDA further added that the chief minister was not keen to give the land at BKC for any purpose other than the IFSC and so MMRDA had been asked to float tenders during the Make In India Week itself.