PM GatiShakti National Master Plan to provide multimodal connectivity infrastructure to various economic zones
Dec 20, 2023
New Delhi [India], December 20 : The Prime Minister launched the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan (NMP) on October 13, 2021, to provide multimodal connectivity infrastructure to various economic zones. PM Gati Shakti's National Master Plan provides a comprehensive database of the trunk and utility infrastructure and ongoing and future projects of various infrastructure and economic ministries and departments of the central government, states and UTs. This data is integrated with the GIS-enabled PM Gati Shakti platform, thereby facilitating the integrated planning, designing, and monitoring of the Next Generation infrastructure projects on a single portal, Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Som Parkash said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday.
Economic Zones like textile clusters, pharmaceutical clusters, defence corridors, electronic parks, industrial corridors, fishing clusters, agri zones etc. are being mapped for integrated infrastructure planning and make Indian businesses more cost-competitive. This will boost economic growth, attract foreign investments while de-risking investments by visualizing the connectivity, and enhance the country's global competitiveness in export markets.
While the development of integrated infrastructure development is addressed through the PM Gati Shakti NMP, efficiency in services (like processes, digital systems, and regulatory framework) and human resources is addressed by the National Logistics Policy, 2022 through its Comprehensive Logistics Action Plan (CLAP). NMP and National Logistics Policy together provide a framework for creating a data-driven decision support mechanism for an efficient logistics ecosystem aimed at reducing logistics costs and enhancing logistics efficiency in the country, as per an official release issued from the Ministry of Commerce & Industry.
PM Gati Shakti is a Whole-of-Government approach adopted to facilitate integrated planning of multimodal infrastructure through collaboration among the concerned Ministries. So far, the Logistics Division of DPIIT has conducted 62 Network Planning Group (NPG) meetings to assess the comprehensive area-based socio-economic development of infrastructure projects.
The feedback from various Ministries has been received; inter-alia Ministry of Road Transport and Highways is using PM Gati Shakti for ground surveys, land records, and highway alignments resulting in saving time and costs in the planning of projects; Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas utilizes NMP's electronic Detail Route Survey (eDRS) to generate reports in a shorter span of time; Ministry of Railways has finalised Final Location Survey (FLS) in FY2021-22 at a much faster rate as compared toFY2020-21, to cite a few examples, as per the release.
Further, the PM Gati Shakti institutional mechanism has been adopted by States/UTs and NPG meetings are also being organized at the State/UT level to assess last and first-mile connectivity gaps and ensure seamless movement of people, goods & services, it added.
