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With all might and power, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the Gati Shakti National Master Plan on 13 October 2021 to help India achieve the USD 20-trillion economy dream by 2040. The ambitious program was hailed as the infrastructural game-changer, and has certainly proved to be so in the last one year of being in force. Over 900 layers of data of Central Ministries and 654 layers of data of States are available at the click of a button, and nearly 1300 issues have been resolved in projects for speedy implementation, with almost 200 critical infrastructure projects being sped up.
A national infrastructure master plan envisages a centralized portal to unite the infrastructural initiatives planned and initiated by as many as 16 central ministries and departments, which will give them the visibility of each other’s projects. The Prime Minister’s holistic vision for India’s infrastructural transformation includes state-of-the-art infrastructure, multi-modal connectivity, reduce logistics cost and turnaround time, efficient movement of goods and people, and enhanced ease of doing business.
The key-master to the Gati Shakti National Master Plan is the Department for Promotion of Trade and Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT)’s Logistics Division, under the Ministry Commerce and Industry (MoCI). Plus, an Empowered Group of Secretaries (EGoS) headed by the Cabinet Secretary will see the implementation of the major initiatives.
The Master Plan is based on six pillars of comprehensiveness, prioritisation, optimisation, synchronisation, and being analytical and dynamic.
Since its launch last year, all the States and UTs in India have integrated with the Master Plan and have set up their respective EGoS at state level for smooth implementation of the Master Plan. On the other hand, 1380 projects are already being monitored by the project monitoring group, as per information from the MoCI.
It should also be noted that post the launch of the Gati Shakti National Master Plan, 14 States and UTs have formulated and listed their respective State Logistics Policy on the DPIIT (Logistics Division) website. The state level EGoS, have therefore become a critical part of operationalising the logistics policies in purview of the Master Plan. Similarly, the national level EGoS operate on a wider spectrum.
Jumping to 6 months down the line, the PM Gati Shakti Masterplan was given an investment boost of additional INR 5,000 crore. The finance fuelling was done to assist the States with capital expenditure. The projects eligible to reap the benefits of the said investment boost are:
- MMLPs and modern aggregation centers
- First and last mile connectivity for industrial parks and special economic zones
- Data monitoring centers at State level for assessing freight movement
- Land acquisition for developing new industrial parks
- Connectivity projects for cargo terminals development by Ministry of Railways
- Setting up Gati Shakti data centers
Fast forward to present day, the Project Monitoring Group mechanism, under which all infrastructure projects are to be monitored has already started monitoring of 1380 projects and resolved 1300 issues. Of the 1380 projects, 345 are private sector ones. Twelve customised decision-making tools have been developed on PM Gati Shakti NMP for project planning, land parcel evaluation, cost estimation, forest intersections, monitored on PMG, it further highlighted.
Based on PM GatiShakti, the government has finalised a comprehensive country-wide port connectivity plan just a few days ago to connect all its ports by different modes of transport, including 60 road and 42 rail projects that will benefit 84 Indian ports with better connectivity for cargo.
As many as 94 new infra projects for movement of coal, steel and food products have also been identified for a speedy rollout under the PM GatiShakti NMP. These include projects for improving connectivity to coal and steel mines of the country through new railway lines and airports.
Seven major ministries and departments — Telecom, Railways, Road Transport and Highways, Petroleum and Natural Gas, Ports and Shipping, Agriculture, and Food and Public Distribution — have started using the PM GatiShakti Platform for infrastructure planning and decision-making. Well placed sources say the Highways Ministry had used the portal to make pre-alignments for 11 Greenfield projects under Bharatmala scheme and drawn up over 113 Detailed Project Reports (DPRs).
With nearly 1,569 layers of data now uploaded on the PM GatiShakti NMP by Centre and the States, complete satellite-scale visibility on existing and proposed projects in any part of the country is now available to government at the click of a button. This was also mentioned by the Prime Minister during the recent launch of the National Logistics Policy.
The Government is also working actively towards capacity-building by training over a 1000 government employees on PM Gati Shakti to facilitate easier adoption of tech that the Master Plan brings along. An extensive exercise will be done on training, and a new course is coming on PM GatiShakti via online platform, so that any government servant can do it, an official said. There is a proposal that any officer of Deputy Secretary-level and above should necessarily do this course so that he is acquainted with PM GatiShakti in any job he does in the future. Training courses are under design to train 10,000 more officers on the IGOT platform on GatiShakti.
