Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has announced plans for a new commercial hub near the upcoming Navi Mumbai International Airport, calling it a “new business magnet” that will complement Mumbai’s status as India’s financial capital. Speaking at the Mumbai Tech Summit on Friday, Fadnavis introduced the Navi Mumbai Airport Influence Notified Area (NAINA) as a large-scale, thematic urban development in Raigad district.
“While Mumbai will always remain the country’s business capital, we now need to create a new urban agglomeration around the new airport,” Fadnavis stated and highlighted that NAINA would be three times the size of Mumbai and designed to meet modern business needs. The proposed city will be just a 25-minute drive from the Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC), Mumbai’s current financial district.
Fadnavis also discussed Maharashtra’s ambitious river-linking project, which aims to create a 560-km-long river system to address water scarcity in the Vidarbha region. “This project will ensure that Vidarbha becomes completely drought-free,” he said.
Reflecting on Mumbai’s past challenges in the technology sector, Fadnavis acknowledged that the city lost the IT revolution to Bengaluru and Hyderabad due to inefficiencies between 2000 and 2014. However, he asserted that since 2014, the state government has been working to position Mumbai as a tech hub. “Mumbai is becoming more affordable, and with its airport, ease of living, and focus on thematic urban planning, it is now emerging as the ‘Data Centre Capital’ of the country,” he added.
The Chief Minister also emphasized the significance of the proposed deep-sea port at Vadhvan in Palghar district. “The Vadhvan port will be three times bigger than JNPA and will transform not just Mumbai but the entire Indian economy. This one project will make us a maritime power,” he declared.
With these projects, Maharashtra aims to cement its position as a key driver of economic growth in India, combining business-friendly infrastructure with cutting-edge technology.
