PM Gati Shakti

Context:

Prime Minister urged State governments as well as private sector to adopt the Gati Shakti portal to plan infrastructure projects and develop special economic zones.

• Portal would be set up to bring 16 Ministries together for integrated planning and implementation of infrastructure connectivity projects. The portal is expected to be ready by March end.

Relevance:

GS-III: Industry and Infrastructure (Industrial Policy, Government Policies and Initiatives), GS-III: Indian Economy (Growth and Development of Indian Economy)

Dimensions of the Article:

1. About PM Gati Shakti Yojana 2021
2. Significance of PM Gati Shakti

About PM Gati Shakti Yojana 2021

• PM Gati Shakti Yojana 2021 is a 100 lakh crore national infrastructure master plan that would provide a leap to Atmnirbhar Bharat and provide multimodal connectivity to boost the infrastructure development of the country.
• This Masterplan will bring together 16 Ministries and seven core infrastructure sectors, on a single platform in order to synergise project planning across stakeholder ministries for avoiding duplication, plug gaps and expedite clearances at the right time.
• Gati Shakti Scheme was launched with the aim of achieving three basic goals namely:
  1. Seamless multimodal connectivity for facilitating easy movement of goods & people,
  2. Improved prioritisation, optimal usage of resources, timely creation of capacities, and
  3. Resolution of issues like disjointed planning, standardisation & clearances. This project would help in the improvement of National Infrastructure by lending them more money and providing them with more speed.
• It seeks to attract investment from worldwide to improve the infrastructure in India and will provide new direction & fresh momentum for overall infrastructure development in India and the scheme will also create employment opportunities for the youth.
• The projects under the $1.5 Trillion National Infrastructure Pipeline would be included under PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan.
• Private players would also get a boost to invest in National infrastructure as easy clearances and monetary help would be available to them.
• This project would also provide last-mile connectivity to economic zones in a definite timeframe.

Significance of PM Gati Shakti

• India’s projects were earlier a victim of interministerial delays, multiple stakeholders and a culture to work in silos. This led to cost overruns and hampered decision making, in turn, delaying the projects and development for good. The Gati Shakti Master Plan would cut down such loopholes and consolidate the infrastructure projects in some specific corridors without getting into various long timed approval processes.
• There would also be a geographic information system (GIS) enabled digital platform under Gati Shakti that would be useful for gathering relevant information on any regions topography, satellite images and physical features. This would help the ministries to save funds and approve projects timely as well.

PM GatiShakti is based on six pillars:

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 & execution of projects in a comprehensive manner.

2. Prioritization: Through this, different Departments will be able to prioritize their projects through cross–sectoral interactions.

3. Optimization: The National Master Plan will assist different ministries in planning for projects after 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. Synchronization: Individual Ministries and Departments often work in silos. There is lack of coordination in planning and implementation of the project resulting in delays. PM GatiShakti will help in synchronizing 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 visualize, 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.

-Source: The Hindu