Context

• Prime Minister of India has launched the GatiShakti Master Plan to provide multi-modal connectivity to more than 1,200 industrial clusters.

PM GatiShakti is based on six pillars

• 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.

  

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

Multiple issues: 

• There was lack of coordination between different Departments, for example, once a road was constructed, other agencies dug up the constructed road again for activities like laying of underground cables, gas pipelines etc. 
• time-taking approval process, multiplicity of regulatory clearances etc.
• Challenge of reducing vehicular emissions from road freight growth in order to meet climate change commitments and containing input costs due to extraordinarily high taxes on diesel.
• Significant delays to projects can often be traced to incompatible and hostile land acquisition decisions that alienate communities or threaten to violate environmental integrity.

Significance of PM GatiShakti

• PM GatiShakti is the result of Prime Minister’s constant endeavour to build Next Generation Infrastructure which improves Ease of Living as well as Ease of Doing Business.
• The multi-modal connectivity will provide integrated and seamless connectivity for movement of people, goods and services from one mode of transport to another.
• It will facilitate the last mile connectivity of infrastructure and also reduce travel time for people.
• PM GatiShakti will provide the public and business community information regarding the upcoming connectivity projects, other business hubs, industrial areas and surrounding environment.
  • This will enable the investors to plan their businesses at suitable locations leading to enhanced synergies.
• It will create multiple employment opportunities and give a boost to the economy.
• It will improve the global competitiveness of local products by cutting down the logistics costs and improving the supply chains, and also ensure proper linkages for local industry & consumers.
• Reducing the cost of logistics to GDP that has prevailed at about 14% to an aspirational 8%. 
• A similar fillip to efficiency in port operations can increase cargo handling capacity and cut vessel turnaround time. 
• PM GatiShakti will address the past issues through institutionalizing holistic planning for stakeholders for major infrastructure projects.
• Instead of planning & designing separately in silos, the projects will be designed and executed with a common vision. It will incorporate the infrastructure schemes of various Ministries and State Governments like Bharatmala, Sagarmala, inland waterways, dry/land ports, UDAN etc.
• Economic Zones like textile clusters, pharmaceutical clusters, defence corridors, electronic parks, industrial corridors, fishing clusters, agri zones will be covered to improve connectivity & make Indian businesses more competitive.
• It will also leverage technology extensively including spatial planning tools with ISRO imagery developed by BiSAG-N (Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and Geoinformatics).

Source: PIB & The Hindu

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