Describing Gujarat International Finance Tec-city (GIFT City) as a “miracle”, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday tried to hard-sell the project — originally designed for developing financial services in Gujarat — as a “role model” for the development of future smart cities in India.

The project that was first conceptualized and promoted by Narendra Modi when he was the chief minister of Gujarat, got a huge boost on Friday when Jaitley unveiled the “regulations and guidelines” for setting up the country’s first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) within the Special Economic Zone area of the GIFT City project located in Gandhinagar.

“Today when I visited GIFT City at Gandhinagar, I could see one of the most futuristic ideas coming up…It is almost a miracle that I saw with the kind of futuristic planning being undertaken… It is also a role model for creation of smart cities in other states, where without almost no core investment, you can create a first grade global smart city,” said Jaitley while delivering a speech at an event at Mahatma Mandir complex where he also released a booklet containing regulatory norms for ISFCs in India.

He pointed out how the Gujarat government had used wasteland to create world-class infrastructure within the project that is spread over 886 acres of land. Currently, the first of the three phases, of the ambitious Rs 82,000 crore GIFT city project is underway which also includes an IFSC that is being developed as a global alternative to existing financial centres such as Dubai, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Shanghai, La Defense, Paris and London Dockyard.