Dream home of India's richest man

By Zubair Ahmed

Ambani has been accused of an obscene display of wealth

Details have emerged of a huge new building in Mumbai that is being built by India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani. His skyscraper home in the city will be over 170m tall and will have an army of 600 staff to manage it.

Its 27 floors on a 4,532 sq metre plot will provide a panoramic view of the entire city of Mumbai (Bombay) once it is completed next year. With the country's economy soaring, India's commercial city is poised to have many more such skyscrapers.
Construction of the family home is well under way.

'Full view'
The son of a former petrol pump attendant who went on to build a business empire, Mukesh Ambani is reportedly spending $1bn on his new home. Legend has it that Mr Ambani - the chairman, and largest shareholder of Reliance Industries, India's largest private sector company - wants to enjoy a "full view" of the Arabian Sea.

So his architects came up with the idea of a 27-storey home. The first six floors will serve as car parks. A health club will be built on the next two and the few floors above that will house hundreds of staff. Fifty-year-old Mr Ambani and his family will occupy the top floors of the building which will also have a helipad and swimming pools.

Critics say it is an obscene display of wealth, especially in a city where more than half the inhabitants live on the pavements. Architects believe that the construction of high-rises will provide a long-term solution to the problem of sheltering the city's homeless, especially when development land is in short supply.

One architect who is constructing a building which will be even taller than that planned by Mr Ambani told the BBC that Mumbai will soon be "littered with high-rises" as the government strives to shift slum dwellers into tower blocks.