NEW DELHI: The PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan was launched last year with the aim to break departmental silos and bring in more holistic and integrated infrastructure planning with a focus on Multimodal Modal connectivity. Apart from bringing Central Ministries and Departments together for infrastructure planning, the master plan is also getting the State Governments onboard.

Amrit Lal Meena, Special Secretary (Logistics), Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Commerce Ministry was recently quoted as saying that the Government is working on a protocol for private sector participation in Gati Shakti Master Plan and soon the protocol along with facilitation mechanism will be established.

On the Progress of Gati Shakti, he said, “after the launch, the first task was to upload data layers on the National Master Plan. BISAG-N (Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geoinformatics), which is developing the National Master Plan, has uploaded more than 900 data layers from different Central Ministries and more than 450 data layers pertaining to the state governments.

Now Gati Shakti digital portal is up and running for usage by Central Ministries for their infrastructure planning and it is also being put to use by many of the State Governments.

Second major aspect of the master plan is the capacity building and training, which is to be imparted to various Central Ministries and state governments and also to the consulting firms who are associated with different ministries for planning purposes. That exercise has also been extensively carried out. People have been trained, user ID, passwords have been issued and most of the ministries are now using it.

At the national level, the institutional framework envisaged in the form of Empowered Group of Secretaries has already been established, network planning group constituting heads of planning division from various Ministries and Departments have already been set up with more than 25 meetings already been held and a technical support unit to support the network planning group has been set up.

Speaking on Participation of States, he said, almost all the States, except for a few, have also set up their institutional framework. So, all these states are fully on board and slowly and steadily adoption at the state level is picking up.

The extent of adoption by States, in terms of putting data layers, in terms of its uses for their infrastructure planning, that varies from State to State and it depends on the interest shown by a particular State. It is a slow and steady progress.

There are a large number of States which can be termed as frontrunners. Some of the States have started using the National Master Plan for their planning purposes. Some of the States have put their land revenue maps. So States like Gujarat, Karnataka, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Tripura, Rajasthan have taken active involvement since the beginning.

On planning to integrate the private sector into the Gati Shakti Master Plan, he said, “the National Master Plan is for usage by everyone, including the Government Departments. It is meant to be used by the private sector also.

Now we are working out a protocol as to how the private sector is to be involved with regard to access of data and its uses. Very soon the protocol and facilitation mechanism is likely to be established. For the Country as a whole when the private sector uses the National Master Plan data for its decision support system, then efficiency gains would come. If an investor before taking an investment decision is able to visualize the connectivity of a particular geography in terms of transport infrastructure, telecom infrastructure, power, gas infrastructure and so on, then the decision making would be better. Very soon it will be made available to the private sector.”

On the progress of 100 Gati Shakti Multimodal Cargo Terminals. He said, “the Ministry of Railways has already come out with Gati Shakti Multimodal Cargo Terminal Policy. As per the latest discussions, 11 such Cargo Terminals have been planned by the Ministry of Railways and for rest they are at different stages of development.

The National Highways Authority of India is spearheading the development of Multimodal Logistics Parks. There are plans to develop 35 such parks. 

Multimodal Logistics Parks will be the hub for the movement of containerised cargo in a articular geography. In this year’s budget, the setting up of four new Multimodal Logistics Parks was announced and the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has already started working on it.

The connectivity to such MMLPs will be broadly along the expressways or highways. If there are requirements of rail connectivity, that under Gati Shakti will be discussed in the network planning group and depending on the requirements suitable action will be taken.