AHMEDABAD: Top telecom and technology firms have expressed interest in setting up the Gujarat International Finance-Tec (GIFT) City's Information and Communication Technology infrastructure.
The companies include Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communication, Tata Communications Ltd, Cisco Systems, Wipro Ltd, Sify Technologies Ltd., HP India, AGC Networks Limited, Newgen Holdings Pvt. Ltd., Allied Digital Services Ltd., Sai Infosystem, Mircoqual Techno Ltd, BSNL, IBM, Tulip Telecom and Huewai Ltd.
The overall concept, master plan, high design of ICT services including data centres has been developed by British Telecom. The agency will be selected by GIFT after an evaluation of their proposals. The proposed ICT infrastructure will be the backbone of conducting financial transactions from GIFT across the globe.
For this, GIFT has created a Special Purpose Vehicle 'GIFT ICT Services Limited' The upcoming GIFT project is aimed at enabling liberalised financial regime in the country. The ICT project aims at creating infrastructure that provides a competitive edge to companies coming up at GIFT.
"Many firms have shown keen interest to be ICT partner in GIFT project. GIFT officials had meetings with senior representatives from all these agencies. They will submit their proposals by September 5," said R K Jha, director of GIFT project. Creation of ICT infrastructure will change the business environment for companies willing to come up at GIFT. The companies will have to set up the infrastructure within two years.
In December last year, the Board of Approval (BoA) for SEZs had given a nod to set up of India's first of its kind International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) at GIFT in Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat. This will be a deemed foreign territory in India for export and import transactions.
GIFT project will be Indian equivalent of similar financial centres in Hong Kong, Dubai, China, Malaysia, UK (London) and the United States (New York) contributing 5-60% of GDP of their respective countries. The IFSC status will enable foreign and Indian banks as well as non-banking financial institutions to conduct transactions in foreign currencies in India.
Currently, they have to transact only in the Indian currency. The move will also enable Indian companies raise funds for overseas acquisition from the banks and financial institutions set up in the GIFT city project.