New Delhi [India]: The Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal chaired a review meeting on Prime Minister Gati Shakti Plan on Thursday (April 14), said an official statement.
“The NMP will help in achieving the objective of an ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ by providing visibility to various stakeholders involved in infrastructure development. It will incorporate the infrastructure schemes of various Ministries and State Governments. Economic Zones like textile clusters, pharmaceutical clusters, defence corridors, electronic parks, industrial corridors, fishing clusters, Agri zones etc. will also be covered under the master plan,” said the ministry.
The PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan (NMP) is an integrated plan depicting all the existing and proposed development initiatives of various Ministries/Departments for better synergy.
“This will boost economic growth, attract investments and enhance the country’s global competitiveness,” the official statement read.
During a presentation made by the Special Secretary of Logistics Division, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), the ministry wise progress on the targets set under the PM Gati Shakti were discussed in the review meeting.
As per the statement, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has completed 1,41,190 Km of National Highways, on March 31 2022, out of the set target of 2,00,000 km for 2024-25.
“Similarly, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas has completed the laying of gas pipeline for 20,000 km out of the 34,500 km for the same time period and The Ministry of Power has already surpassed its target for laying the transmission network of 4,54,200 km by the end of March 2022,” it said.
According to the statement, the Department of Telecommunication has created an Optical fibre cables (OFC) network of 33,00,997 km as of March 31 2022, against the set target of 50,00,000 km for 2024-25.
As per the ministry, it was also noted during the meeting that the institutional framework has been brought into action. Accordingly, the apex body – an Empowered Group of Secretaries (EGoS) under the Chairmanship of the Cabinet Secretary has been constituted to approve any changes in the Master Plan for meeting any emerging requirements.
“An integrated Multimodal Network Planning Group (NPG) has been operationalized with representation from various connectivity infrastructure Ministries/Departments involving their heads of Network Planning Division for unified planning and integration of the proposals and assist the EGoS,” it said.
“States have been on-boarded and institutional set-up has been constituted in states as well, to streamline and demonstrate the concept of PM GatiShakti,” it read further.
Empowered Group of Secretaries has been constituted in 25 states, Network Planning Group is functional in 9 states, and Technical Support Unit has been set up in 6 states of the country. The capacity building exercise for the officials of the Central ministries/departments and the States Government has been completed.
In the review meeting, the benefits and on-ground impact of the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan portal were also illustrated.
Various ministries/departments and state governments have started using this portal for integration and synchronization of implementation efforts, optimization of cost and time at the stage of planning of infrastructure projects.
“To achieve its objective to provide 50 Mbps of bandwidth to the citizens under the National Broadband Mission, planning for connecting all the non-fiberized towers through the OFC is being done through the PM GatiShakti NMP. All the non-fiberized towers and existing OFC Network is mapped on the Department of Telecommunication GatiShakti Portal,” it revealed.
The statement also said that based on the data and Planning criteria, the tool is being developed to get the length of required OFC and cost of OFC Laying.
The portal has also been used by the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL), the Ministry of Railways for firming the alignment for the East-West, East-Coast and North-South Dedicated Freight Corridors (DFCs) to minimize disruption, cost and time overruns in project implementation.
“To meet the rising demand for air connectivity, the Ministry of Civil Aviation AAI (MoCA) has used this portal to identify the land acquisition requirements, land use analysis and road connectivity for expansion of the Jolly Grant Airport, Dehradun, Uttarakhand. AAI benefitted in terms of timely planning, and cost-saving as use of this portal replaced the need for a physical survey,” it added further.
Highlighting the potential of the PM Gati Shakti NMP, the Minister emphasized that improved multimodal connectivity to various economic zones will ensure seamless movement of goods and people. PM Gati Shakti NMP portal will provide a bird’s eye view of infrastructure and facilitate better network planning and faster clearances.
According to the press statement, in his concluding remarks, Piyush Goyal expressed satisfaction with the wide adoption of the NMP by central ministries/departments and states.
He also appreciated the positive on-ground impact of PM Gati Shakti and lauded the good work done by all infrastructure ministries in an integrated manner to realize the objectives of the PM GatiShakti.
He provided future guidance on developing robust mechanisms for tracking the progress of projects, futuristic scenario building based on the impact generated and mitigation requirements, collecting feedback to improve the portal and problem statements of different stakeholders to develop solutions/use cases/functionalities.
The meeting was also attended by V K Tripathi, Chairman of Railway Board, Dr Sanjeev Ranjan, Secretary, Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, Rajiv Bansal, Secretary of Ministry of Civil Aviation, Anurag Jain, Secretary of Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade and senior officials from all other infrastructure Ministries/Departments. (ANI)
