The vision behind India’s new financial center is simple: a competitive hub rivaling places like Dubai and Singapore, and designed to be the country’s first “15-minute” smart city. Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, or GIFT City, has already attracted global banks with tax incentives, as well as more than 170 asset managers, universities, insurance companies and local tech giants.

But the dream is far from being realized. While current residents enjoy short commutes and leafy neighborhoods, most of the 28,000 people who work in GIFT City go home to other places at the end of the day. Much of the city remains under construction and a lack of social amenities has discouraged some potential residents from moving there, Subhadip Sircar and Saikat Das report. Like with other planned-from-scratch, high-tech utopias, it could take decades for the city to take off — if it does at all. Today on Bloomberg: India Finds Out How Hard It Is to Build a Finance Hub From Scratch

— Arvelisse Bonilla Ramos

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