What is Gati Shakti Master Plan, Need, Targeted Areas and Goals

Gati Shakti Master Plan: What is it?

There are plans for multi-modal infrastructure connectivity in economic zones through the Gati Shakti Master Plan, a scheme worth Rs. 100 lakh crores.

Key Highlight of the Gati Shakti Master Plan:

• In this project, a 'holistic infrastructure' will be developed at a cost of Rs. 100 lakh crores.
• In order to reduce travel time and increase industrial productivity, the plan aims to improve interconnectivity between roads, rails, airways, and waterways.
• As a part of the government's efforts to spur economic growth, infrastructure investment is being significantly increased.

Why do we need Gati Shakti Master Plan?

During the Gati Shakti launch, Modi stressed that there was a wide disparity between macro planning and micro implementation, resulting in problems of coordination, lack of advanced information, silos of thinking, and costly overspending. The PM gave this simple example: "It is quite common that one department builds a road of excellent quality, and then a few days later another department digs up that same road to lay water pipelines. That level of incoordination must stop." Often, various ministry and department groups work independently and there is a lack of coordination in planning and executing a project, resulting in delays. As PM GatiShakti will help ensure coordination, each department and different layers of governance will be synchronized holistically, according to the PMO.

Though the government has not said explicitly, the government's upcoming National Infrastructure Pipeline is largely expected to be monitored by Gati Shakti. Among the varied infrastructure schemes included in Gati Shakti include those of the Union and the states, including Bharatmala, Sagarmala, UDAN, inland waterways, land ports, etc. Furthermore, the plan will ensure that the work can be completed quickly and at a reasonable cost.

Knight Frank India's Executive Director, Government and Infrastructure Advisory, Rajeev Vijay, explained that the main objective is to align all relevant stakeholders to create the appropriate infrastructure as quickly as possible. With Gati Shakti, Vijay said, the infrastructure sector is expected to be transformed and projects will be delivered on schedule, seamlessly, and within budget. According to him, multiple changes that caused the cost overruns will further motivate private companies to participate in federal projects and stimulate the Indian economy.

The Gati Shakti Master Plan is built upon the following six pillars:

1. Comprehensiveness: Providing data and visibility to every government department for efficient planning by integrating all government initiatives into one centralized portal.

2. Prioritisation: Project priority determination via cross-sectoral collaborations.

3. Optimisation: In collaboration with the ministries, the project planning process will identify important stumbling blocks and enable the ministries to develop the best solutions.

4. Synchronisation: In addition to ensuring coordination of work between departments, Gati Shakti will help synchronize the activities of each department holistically.

5. Analytical: A GIS-based spatial planning and analysis tool will be integrated into the plan. This will provide unified data at one location to the executing agency in order to support better visibility and decision making.

6. Dynamic: An integrated GIS platform, powered by satellite imagery, will allow all ministries and departments to monitor, review, and visualize the progress of cross-sectoral projects.

Which areas are targeted by the Gati Shakti Master Plan project?

Key Point of the Gati Shakti Master Plan:

• Projects like this provide future job opportunities for young people.
• The investment in infrastructure produces a multiplier effect that creates higher returns for each rupee invested.
• Moreover, it will improve global visibility for local producers and make them more competitive around the world.
• This could lead to new economic zones emerging in future.
• Manufacturers and exporters could benefit as well.

Goals of Gati Shakti Master Plan:

As part of its second term, Modi's government has promoted a major infrastructure push, and Gati Shakti specifically expands on this. 11 industrial corridors are included in this plan. With the Gati Shakti Master Plan, the defence production turnover is estimated to reach Rs 1.7 lakh crore by 2024-25; in addition, 109 pharma clusters and 38 electronic manufacturing clusters are intended to be built over the same period. According to the national master plan, all infrastructure ministries must meet targets by 2024-25.

• The Road Transport and Highways Ministry are assigned to build national highways totalling 2 lakh km, complete five or six-lane national highways of 5,590 km along the coastline and establish four-lane or two-lane general-purpose highways connecting all state capitals in the north-east.
• As for the Railway sector, the objective is to increase cargo handling capacity to 1,600 million tonnes by 2024-25 from 1,210 million tonnes in 2020, for which additional lines would be constructed and dedicated freight corridors would be established.
• Aviation has the plan to double its footprint by 2025 to have 220 airports, heliports, and water aerodromes, which would require constructing 109 of these in that timeframe.
• A target of 1,759 MMTPA total cargo capacity is set for the ports by 2024-25 compared to 1,282 MMTPA in 2020 under the national master plan for Shipping.
• According to the plan, by 2024-25, the network of gas pipelines will be doubled to 34,500 km by building another 17,000 km long trunk pipeline linking major supply and demand points for industries.
• Power line development is planned to be 4.52 lakh circuit km by 2024-25 and the new capacity for renewable energy will increase from 87.7 GW to 225 GW.