Cont’d. from Pg. 3

As many as 298 projects, including for road and rail connectivity to ports, have been identified under the plan. The Empowered Group of Secretaries headed by Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba has identified critical infra gaps in port connectivity that would be taken on a priority basis and their implementation would be reviewed monthly, officials said. 

The idea is to complete these projects on a fast track, according to sources.

Under the port connectivity master plan, 63 Non-Major Ports, 

13 Major Ports (including the under implementation Vadhavan Port), and 11 Multimodal Terminals and River ports are being considered.

Of the total projects, 161 are road projects and 132 are rail connectivity projects. Out of these, 60 road and 42 railway projects have been identified as critical infrastructure gap projects. These supplement the 191 projects under the Sagarmala programme, a port connectivity improvement exercise started in 2015.

“Out of 102 critical infrastructure gaps that have been identified, multimodal committees have classified six road infrastructure gaps as critical requirements and 29 as very important requirements. The remaining are important or futuristic requirements,” a senior official, aware of the deliberations told.

The road projects entail a cost of Rs. 75,432 crore while the cost of rail connectivity projects is pegged at 

Rs. 76,713 crore.

The ports of Paradip, Visakhapatnam, and Kolkata have been accorded the highest priority with most projects in these connectivity plans.

Of the 102 critical infrastructure gaps, Maharashtra has 31 projects, Karnataka has 17, Gujarat has 16 and Andhra Pradesh has 14. West Bengal and Tamil Nadu have 7 projects each, while Kerala and Odisha have 5 each.

According to official data, 21 road connectivity projects costing Rs. 8,488 crore and 40 rail projects with a budget of Rs. 17,336 crore have already been completed.

Four Sagarmala road projects and 18 rail projects are scheduled to be completed by March 2023 and another nine road and six rail projects by March 2024, said the first official. 

Two more road and eight rail projects would be completed by March 2025.