The Hon’ble Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi on October 13, 2021 launched the PM Gati Shakti Master Plan (“Gati Shakti/Plan”), a pre-launch announcement for which was made by the Hon’ble Prime Minister in his speech during the 75th Independence Day celebration. Gati Shakti is an initiative to monitor and bring on track the progress of infrastructure projects (including railways, roads and highways, petroleum and gas, power, telecom, shipping, aviation) in the pipeline. The Plan has been passed ahead of completion of expansive infrastructural development projects and aims to bring Indian infrastructure development on a common path. The Plan will be implemented by a centralized portal comprising of all existing and planned infrastructure initiatives of 16 central ministries and departments, to ensure that key departments have visibility over major projects on a real time basis.
The Plan focusses on bridging the wide gap between macro planning and micro implementation issues such as lack of coordination, inter-ministerial delays, multilayers of stakeholders etc. The underlying idea being to channelize strengths, optimum utilization of resources and coordination of all infrastructure sectors aimed at creation of a magnanimous infrastructural development of India and giving a go bye to the culture of working in silos.
The key objectives of the Plan are to cut logistic costs, increase cargo handling capacity, reduce turnaround time, improve and enhance crucial supply chains and logistics and improve India’s global competitiveness with regards to manufacturing and exports.
We have seen a staggering delay in execution of infrastructure projects in our country, resulting into huge financial losses, opportunity cost and time. Gati Shakti spells out and focusses on ironing out issues that have hindered the infrastructural development of India, with a holistic view of enhancing the overall strength and collective growth. Essentially, it aims to knit together the ministries and departments of Government of India for a seamless functioning. It is a big step towards incorporating key managerial ideas as a technique in development of India, which is unprecedented.
As the economy is emerging, post the aftermath of the pandemic the Plan is an indication that Government of India is focused on an overall development, having in place seamless connectivity between infrastructural sectors along with the integration of states, local bodies, corporates, through a geospatial digital platform. We are optimistic that this will benefit all sectors and will provide opportunities for sharing of ideas and synergies. We will keep you updated with developments in this area.