In a landmark event marking a milestone for the infrastructural landscape of India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday launched the ‘PM GatiShakti - National Master Plan’ for multi-modal connectivity to economic zones in the country. The plan is an important part of Prime Minister Modi's ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ (self-dependent India) vision and ambitiously aims to lend more power and speed to projects under the $1.5-trillion National Infrastructure Pipeline and boost the goal of achieving a $5-trillion economy, especially in wake of the recent economic impacts of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic.
Union minister for commerce and industry Piyush Goyal, who was also present at the event, said that the PM GatiShakti initiative will give infrastructure creation a new direction and also provide a new pace to existing projects.
What is PM GatiShakti?
The PM Gati Shakti plan, envisioned by the Prime Minister, is a campaign to lend more speed (Gati) and power (Shakti) to projects by connecting all concerned departments on one platform. This way, the infrastructure schemes of various ministries and state governments will be designed and executed with a common vision, Modi said. He added that taxpayers' money in the past was ‘insulted’ through a lethargic approach to development work, with departments working in silos and there was no coordination on projects.
As an example, he said the first inter-state natural gas pipeline was commissioned in 1987. From then to 2014, 15,000-km of the natural gas pipeline was built. Currently, more than 16,000-km of the new gas pipeline is being constructed.
“What was done in 27 years, we are doing in it in less than half that time,” the Prime Minister said.
It is not possible to carry out the development of the country without a holistic approach to quality infrastructure, said Prime Minister Modi, echoing his 15th August Red Fort speech earlier this year on the occasion of the 75th Independence Day. The various government departments which will join hands for coordinated developmental projects include the ministries of road to railways, aviation to agriculture. This will, in turn, reduce logistic cost and turnaround time, and also help India become an attractive investment destination.
The six pillars of ‘PM GatiShakti - National Master Plan’:
1. Comprehensiveness: It will include all the existing and planned initiatives of various ministries and departments with one centralized portal. Each and every department will now have visibility of each other’s activities providing critical data while planning and executing projects in a comprehensive manner.
2. Prioritisation: Through this, different departments will be able to prioritise their projects through cross-sectoral interactions.
3. Optimisation: The National Master Plan will assist different ministries in planning for projects after the identification of critical gaps. For the transportation of the goods from one place to another, the plan will help in selecting the most optimum route in terms of time and cost.
4. Synchronisation: Individual ministries and departments often work in silos. There is a lack of coordination in the planning and implementation of the project resulting in delays. PM GatiShakti will help in synchronising the activities of each department, as well as of different layers of governance, in a holistic manner by ensuring coordination of work between them.
5. Analytical: The plan will provide the entire data at one place with GIS-based spatial planning and analytical tools having 200+ layers, enabling better visibility to the executing agency.
6. Dynamic: All ministries and departments will now be able to visualise, review and monitor the progress of cross-sectoral projects, through the GIS platform, as the satellite imagery will give on-ground progress periodically and progress of the projects will be updated on a regular basis on the portal. It will help in identifying the vital interventions for enhancing and updating the master plan.
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