Gatishakti Master Plan for National Infrastructure Development Launched
In a bid to bring the various strands of India's infrastructure development on a common path, the PM GatiShakti - National Master Plan for multi-modal connectivity has now been launched that envisages a centralised portal comprising all existing and planned infrastructure initiatives of as many as 16 central ministries and departments. As a result, every department will now have visibility of each other’s activities, providing critical data while planning and executing projects in a comprehensive manner. As a result of better planning, the entire process of infrastructure creation is expected to be streamlined beginning from land acquisition to implementation, connections between local, state and national level government bodies and corporates. "Different infra departments and states work in silos, and hence planning is affected. As a result, the projects which were supposed to help grow India's economy have instead become barriers to progress because of lack of coordination," PM Modi said at the launch "Historically, we have experienced many shortcoming with infrastructure planning in India. Different departments do their own planning, but there has been no holistic approach. We have seen how a road is newly constructed, and then the waterworks people will come and dig the road to lay a pipeline," the PM said. The portal will also map the need for roads across the country, reduce logistics costs and pinpoint challenges in connectivity. The plan is the next step after government efforts to address other issues like time-taking approval process, the multiplicity of regulatory clearances etc. Going forward, PM Gatishakti will address the past issues through institutionalizing holistic planning for stakeholders for major infrastructure projects. Instead of planning & designing separately in silos, infra projects are now expected to be designed and executed with a common vision. They will incorporate the infrastructure schemes of various ministries and state Governments like Bharatmala, Sagarmala, inland waterways, dry/land ports, UDAN, among others. Economic Zones like textile clusters, pharmaceutical clusters, defence corridors, electronic parks, industrial corridors, fishing clusters, agri zones will also be covered to improve connectivity & make Indian businesses more competitive. The plan will also leverage technology extensively including spatial planning tools with ISRO imagery developed by BiSAG-N (Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and Geoinformatics).
Tags : News/Views ISRO Economic Zones Gatishakti Master Plan National Infrastructure Development PM GatiShakti BiSAG-N Central Ministries and Departments