The Mumbai Eastern Waterfront is one of the most ambitious and exciting projects planned for the Maximum City. In this first of two articles in the series, Ashish Puntambekar, a strategic planner who has been involved in the project, writes what inspired a central business district in the project. He first describes the financial centre and the business precinct, and then explains how the Burj Khalifa and the Taipei 101 were inspirational in the plan. The Mumbai Eastern Waterfront is one of the 15 projects among the $234 billion Construct Maharashtra initiative. The objective of this construction initiative is to create 26 million new jobs and to raise the standard of living for all residents of Maharashtra. A number of these projects are self-financing and spread across both urban and rural Maharashtra. Of these 15, nine are located in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). At $45 billion, the Mumbai Eastern Waterfront is the largest. Located in MMR, it includes 12 distinct projects. Of them, the financial district and the supertall building complex is the most significant. In the upcoming concluding part of this article, the author discusses the Mumbai Eastern Waterfront project in regards to the issues in the current port redevelopment plan. A session in the Construction World Maharashtra virtual conference on April 28 discusses the Mumbai Eastern Waterfront project.Click to read more.