Mumbai Jilted?

Whatever happened to the recommendations made by the high-powered Expert Committee in February 2007 on transforming Mumbai into an International Financial Centre (IFC)? Yes, the same report which wanted to make Mumbai a global financial hub like Shanghai or London.

Like all high-powered committees appointed by the Union government, this one had all the big names, all right. ICICI's K.V. Kamath, SBI's O.P. Bhatt, HDFC's Aditya Puri, to name a few. The panel brainstormed to come up with some really interesting suggestions (making the city expat-friendly) and the usual rants (improving infrastructure), wordprocessed it into a 250 plus page tome, and presented to the then Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram.

Since then, Chidambaram has changed jobs and is now busy hunting Naxalites in the red corridor. K.V. Kamath has handed over the reins at ICICI Bank to protege Chanda Kochhar. And Mumbai, of course, continues to wait for its annual predicament, floods, with much trepidation.