Saloria Architects of the UK has promised to invest Rs 5,000 billion during the Vibrant Gujarat Summit in Gandhinagar. The com pany signed MoUs with Gujarat housing board (GHB). This is the same group that offered to build the Millennium Observation Wheel or `London Eye' on the Sabarmati riverfront for the last three years. It had even identified land near NID on the riverfront.
While another big ticket investment comes from SDB Diamond Bourse which is signing an MoU of Rs 1,250 billion with GIDB. The MoU, signed by the company director M M Savani, is for developing the world's largest diamond bourse in Surat.
Interestingly, going by the value of the investments Saloria Architects and SDB Diamond Bourse have pledged, the owners should have figured among the top corporate honchos on the inaugural day of the summit. At the seminar on smart cities on Monday, Saloria Architects said they planned to invest the Rs 5,000 billion to develop one smart city, an affordable homes project, a solid waste management project, an amusement spark, and a railway university and “road buildings.” “Yes, we have signed MoUs worth Rs 5,000 billion. We were at an advanced stage of talks with AMC on the millennium wheel project,” said the company's representative Rohit Modi.
In the urban development sector, a total of Rs 6,330 billion of MoUs were signed. In the railway sector, IL&FS Transportation signed an MoU worth Rs 50 billion for the Ahmedabad-Dholera expressway project, while another Rs 16.80 billion MoU was signed by Backbone Enterprise for the four-laning of the Dholka- Sevaliya road.
