Explained: What is Gati Shakti National Master Plan?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has kicked off much talked about PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan for multi-modal connectivity. Highlighting the importance of the plan, PM Modi said, ¡°Will help India realise its dream of becoming the business capital of the world".

What is Gati Shakti?

The Prime Minister had already announced 'PM Gati Shakti - National Master Plan' in his Independence Day speech on August 15 this year.

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As informed by top government official, the plan is aimed at breaking inter-ministerial silos and integrate the planning and designing of projects with a common and holistic vision, enhance India's global competitiveness through next-generation infrastructure and seamless multi-modal connectivity, ensure seamless movement of goods and people and enhance the ease of living as well as the ease of doing business in the country.

Under the programme, a digital platform has also been created which will bring 16 ministries including rail and roadways together for integrated planning and coordinated implementation of infrastructure connectivity projects.

The platform will provide high resolution satellite images, infrastructure, utilities, administrative boundaries, land and logistics.

While the project will be spearheaded by the logistics division in the commerce ministry, there will be an empowered group of secretaries headed by the Cabinet secretary to see the implementation of this major initiative.

Why is the programme needed?

While launching the Gati Shakti initiative, PM Modi had stressed on the wide gap between macro planning and micro implementation, problems of lack of coordination, lack of advance information, and how thinking and working in silos were leading to hampered construction and wastage of budget.

BCCL

It aims to lend more speed (Gati) and power (Shakti) to projects by connecting all concerned departments on one platform. The Gati Shakti initiative has been an important part of a massive infrastructure push of the Modi government's key initiatives in the second term.

This programme is required to help in synchronising the activities of each department, as well as of different layers of governance, in a holistic manner by ensuring coordination along with bridging the gap between planning and implementation of the projects at various levels.

While the government has not been explicit, it is apparent that most of the mega projects under the Rs 110 lakh crore National Infrastructure Pipeline will be monitored under Gati Shakti.

What are the targets under Gati Shakti?

The Rs 100 lakh crore national master plan includes 11 industrial corridors, achieving a Rs 1.7 lakh crore turnover in defence production and having 38 electronics manufacturing clusters and 109 pharma clusters by 2024-25.

It fixes targets up to 2024-25 for all infrastructure ministries. Like for the Road Transport and Highways Ministry, the target is to have National Highways of 2 lakh km, completion of four or six-lane national highways of 5,590 km along coastal areas and all state capitals in north-east to be connected with four-lane national highways or two two-lane national highways.

BCCL

For Railways, the target by 2024-25 is to handle cargo of 1,600 million tonnes from 1,210 million tonnes in 2020, decongesting 51 percent of the Railway network by completing additional lines and implementation of two Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFCs).

Further, the gas pipeline network in the country is aimed to be doubled to 34,500 km by 2024-25 by building an additional 17,000 km long trunk pipeline connecting major demand and supply centres for industries, as per the plan. And in power lines, the total transmission network by 2024-25 is targeted to be 4.52 lakh circuit km and the renewable energy capacity is expected to be increased to 225 GW from 87.7 GW presently.

How will Gati Shakti work?

To execute Gati Shakti, there will be an Integrated Multimodal Network Planning Group (NPG) which will be entrusted with unified planning and integration of proposals as well as connectivity projects which are not part of the current master plan with an estimated cost of over Rs 500 crore.

PIB

The National Networking Group will consist of experts or officials from all the stakeholder departments. The Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade will be the nodal agency.

The group will be responsible for sharing their specific Action Plans for 2020-21 to 2024-25 with each other for facilitating integration of networks, enhancing optimisation through modification/expansion/new network creation to avoid duplication of works for holistic development of any region as well as reducing logistics costs through micro-plan detailing.