The smart city site that is fast taking shape on the banks of the Sabarmati river is now seeing plans being drawn out for 25,000 smart-homes that will also attempt to create an “exclusive and secure zone” with an ideal work-life-balance. (Source: Express photo by Javed Raja) The smart city site that is fast taking shape on the banks of the Sabarmati river is now seeing plans being drawn out for 25,000 smart-homes that will also attempt to create an “exclusive and secure zone” with an ideal work-life-balance. (Source: Express photo by Javed Raja)

About a week ago, Apurva Patel, an young Ahmedabad entrepreneur opened a cafeteria in the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) at Gandhinagar. His franchise unit employing two local boys is located in the amenities section of the campus behind the GIFT-one tower — one of the 110 towers envisioned to be built on a 886 acre campus — and serves just 40-50 customers of the 1,700 workforce that the country’s first greenfield smart city project employs.

“We are still experimenting. We open only by afternoon as most customers come in for tea and a quick snack in the evening. If more people start working here, we plan to tap the business from the morning hours,” said Patel who operates the cafeteria alongside a post-office, a medical store and a stationery store.

The smart city site that is fast taking shape on the banks of the Sabarmati river is now seeing plans being drawn out for 25,000 smart-homes that will also attempt to create an “exclusive and secure zone” with an ideal work-life-balance.

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“At GIFT City we are promoting a walk-to-work concept. So people working in GIFT City can only buy houses within the project. Once complete it will be pretty exciting,” says Ajay Pandey, MD and Group CEO of GIFT City Co Ltd, an equal joint venture of Gujarat government and IL&FS.

“Once these homes are complete, I will be the first one to move in,” adds Pandey who, like others currently working at GIFT City, have to travel either from Ahmedabad or Gandhinagar. Handing a small red bottle of water to drink, he says: “Directly from the tap, potable water of the Narmada.” This is another first for Gujarat where most homes are compelled to use RO systems given the high TDS levels in the water.

The first of the blocks to construct homes is Bengaluru-based Janaadhar Pvt Ltd. Excavation work is underway to construct 330 affordable homes. The first of the blocks to construct homes is Bengaluru-based Janaadhar Pvt Ltd. Excavation work is underway to construct 330 affordable homes.

With GIFT, has also come the seventh bridge on the Sabarmati River, which is almost ready on its south side which Pandey says, will give direct access to the Sardar Patel International airport.

The housing project being built has all the powers of a local body. It has already roped in real-estate developers and given development rights to about four builders — BU Bhandari, Brigade Group, Sangath IPL, World Trade Centre and IL&FS —to develop over six lakh square feet of space.

Several billboards in Gift City’s signature colours — saffron and white — have already sprung up across Ahmedabad, marketing homes of developers, who are among the first few to begin construction at GIFT which is divided into two parts — the Domestic Tariff area and the Special Economic Zone — housing India’s first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). The SEZ will ensure necessary licences to open pubs and allow drinking, in a state otherwise controlled by prohibition. “Since we are marketing the city to foreigners as well, the city will have to be of international standards,” says an official.

The first of the blocks to construct homes is Bengaluru-based Janaadhar Pvt Ltd. Excavation work is underway to construct 330 affordable homes. “Even though they have an affordable tag, these houses will be aspirational in nature,” says the CEO.

This greenfield development taking shape at GIFT City has also been acknowledged in the ‘Mission Statement & Guidelines’ for Smart Cities released by Union Ministry of Urban Development in June 2015: “Greenfield developments are required around cities in order to address the needs of the expanding population. The smart city development at GIFT City is very different from the that of retrofitting existing cities …”

“One advantage of being a greenfield project is that we can build a modern city from scratch. We can keep the future needs in mind while building such smart enclaves. This is much easier than retrofitting and redeveloping existing cities. However, the disadvantage is that such developments do take time and we need to attract both business and human resource…,” says Jinash Shah, general manager (business development) at GIFT City Co. Ltd.

The other project being marketed is the 250-odd studio apartments (covering about 1.5 lakh square feet) being built by World Trade Centre (WTC). “We are building a living space in a commercial building. These are serviced apartments and we have invited people to come and register for this property,” says Prashant Tripathi, official spokesperson of Viridian Group that is building the WTC at the GIFT City.

“… this facility will also have a club, a fine-dining restaurant, pools and gymnasium,” Tripathi added about the project that will have living apartments that will have sizes between 800-1,200 square feet and will be priced over Rs 6,500 per square feet which is almost on par with prices of luxurious homes in high-rise structures in Gandhinagar and neighbouring Ahmedabad.

Only 4 per cent of the total land (total built up area will be 14 million square feet) will be used for building homes. Commercial development will constitute 28 per cent (built up area of 42 million square feet), social facilities will occupy five percent (built up area of six million square feet), while a huge 34 per cent is being allocated to green and open spaces. The rest of the area will be taken up for transportation and utilities.

The 25,000 homes that will be part of high-rise structures will be fully air-conditioned. The smart-city homes will be directly connected to the District Cooling System, which is a first of its kind that completes eliminates air-conditioners jutting out of walls in the offices.

Chilled water from this District Cooling System will be carried through pipes located in a utility tunnel.

Similarly, these homes will also be connected to a automated waste collecting centre which is almost ready at the GIFT City. “These homes being built in GIFT will roughly house about a lakh people. There will be one, two, three and four BHK (bedroom-hall-kitchen) apartment that will measure between 800-2,000 square feet,” said Dipesh Shah, vice-president (business development) at GIFT City.

These homes will be connected to an Intelligent Building Management Systems (IBMS) where all the functions of the building like lighting, heating, ventilation, emergency and escape routes, lighting control and others will be controlled and monitored from a central location. The residential buildings will in turn be connected to the main three-floor command and control centre. Christened as C-4 this centre will form the core of the city and will integrate a complex network of CCTV cameras and sensors to centre to provide an integrated surveillance system. Access to GIFT will also be controlled by smart cards.

Pandey says the IBMS will make life easier. “Residents can book tickets for a film or a show from their homes”, he says.

Authorities claim that the round the clock surveillance within the city will not interfere with the privacy of the people living inside. “This system will monitor all movements only till the entrance of the residential complex. There will not be any interference in the way a person leads his life inside his or her residential quarters,” say GIFT officials.

While a school, post-office and a fuel station have already become functional, investments for building a multi-specialty 200-bed hospital, movie-theatres, shopping malls, hotels and restaurants have already been committed and are expected to add value to the smart-homes. For transportation within the smart city, plans are to operate electric buses while the entire project spread a little over 880 acres will be linked to the nearby hubs through metrorail and BRTS projects.

“Even though we have not started taking bookings for the GIFT City, we are getting a lot of inquiries from investors, corporates, nonresident Indians who are keen to buy a home in this project which everybody expects to be a role model for smart cities in India,” says Pravin Bavadiya, chairman (Government Liasoning), National Association of Realtors-India (NAR) who also has a real-estate broking firm that currently transacts office spaces in GIFT City.

37-year-old Kavita Bajpai, principal of the Jamnabai Narsee School, which is currently in its second academic year, says, “I am expecting it to be a dream city. I have already seen some of the layouts of the homes that were showcased at an exhibition I am looking forward to owning a home.”The school currently has classes up to 7th grade and approximately 600 students, all from in and around Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar.

In order to address the housing needs of the GIFT City, the state government has planned a GIFT Expansion Zone of about 3,000 acres outside the campus that will house an additional 30 lakh population.

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