Chandigarh, March 10 -- Over six months after UT administrator Gulab Chand Kataria announced in his Independence Day address that Chandigarh would be developed as a National Service Industry Centre on the lines of Gujarat's GIFT City, the Union government on Monday informed the Lok Sabha that no such proposal had been received from the Chandigarh administration. The development assumes significance as the UT administration had earlier indicated plans to set up an International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), modelled on the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City), in Industrial Area, Phase 1 and Phase 2. The proposal envisioned transforming the existing industrial belt into a futuristic business ecosystem focused on financial services and global business operations. But on Monday, responding to an unstarred question raised by Chandigarh member of Parliament Manish Tewari, minister of state for finance Pankaj Chaudhary said the Centre had not received any formal proposal from the UT administration seeking the establishment of a financial hub similar to GIFT City in the Union territory. In his question, Tewari had asked whether the Union government had received any such request and whether the law restricted the establishment of only one such financial hub in the country. In its reply, the government clarified that the International Financial Services Centres Authority Act, 2019, did not provide for the establishment of IFSCs. Instead, such centres were notified under Section 18 of the Special Economic Zones Act, 2005. The Centre also acknowledged that it had received a representation from MP Manish Tewari on January 6, 2025, requesting that Chandigarh be considered for setting up an IFSC. However, the government said the representation had been responded to on January 23, 2025, explaining that concentrating offshore financial services in a single location enabled better regulatory oversight and operational efficiency, while also allowing authorities to continuously upgrade regulatory infrastructure. The government also cited remarks made by former finance minister Arun Jaitley in the Lok Sabha in December 2017, noting that there was a practical limit to the number of IFSCs that can be established in the country. Since the existing IFSC at GIFT City was still under development, the Centre believed it should be optimally utilised before considering similar facilities elsewhere....