GUWAHATI: Large-scale absence of coordination and collaboration among agencies has been a major challenge to time bound infrastructure project implementation in India. 

Very often these projects have faced time overruns, leading to significant cost escalations. 

As per the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), Government of India, in the beginning of 2021, 1,687 Union Government projects under implementation, valued more than Rs 21.45 lakh crore, had run into cost overrun of nearly 20 percent, largely because of their delays.

For instance, 311 railways projects show time overruns in the range of two to 324 months, while in case of 858 road development projects time overruns are in the range of one to 152 months.

Factors cited for time overruns are underestimation of original project cost, spiralling land acquisition cost, delays in environment, forest and wildlife clearances and industrial licensing permission, road crossing of pipelines/transmission lines, shifting of utilities, delays in the tie-up of project financing, delays in finalisation of detailed engineering, etc.

In addition, there are bottlenecks at the State Government level such as issues in land acquisition and removal of encroachments, relief and rehabilitation planning and implementation, timely issuance of no objection certificate, necessary power and water supply, and work order related issues. 

At the core of these cost and time overruns lie the ill-coordinated efforts on the imperative of synchronisation of infrastructure projects for their timebound implementation.All this could change now. 

The recently announced Prime Minister of India’s Gati Shakti National Master Plan for Multi-Modal Connectivity is all set to revolutionise the way infrastructure and logistic development projects are planned and implemented in India. It will bridge huge differences between macro planning and micro implementation. 

The Plan is essentially a digital platform to bring 16 Ministries, including Railways and Roadways, together for integrated planning and coordinated implementation of infrastructure connectivity projects.

PM Gati Shakti will cover the infrastructure projects worth over Rs 500 crore of various Ministries of the Union and State Governments like Bharatmala, Sagarmala, inland waterways, dry/land ports, UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagarik – subsidies for facilitating air travel), etc. 

The aim is to ensure that these projects are implemented in a coordinated and timebound manner so as to provide integrated and seamless last mile connectivity for the movements of people and cargoes from one mode of transportation to another.

Gati Shakti to expedite Infra Projects in North East 

As a result of the Gati Shakti, the delayed approach to project implementation in Northeast India is expected to undergo a tectonic shift. This is because most of these projects under implementation, including those under Bharatmala Pariyojana, will now be part of an institutional framework under the Gati Shakti Master Plan. 

Infrastructure development projects in Northeast India will experience coordinated planning and timely implementation.

That is an imperative for improving the existing supply chains and for exploring new value chains, including through electronic commerce and the application of new technologies such as blockchain, both for internal and external trade. 

This is needed for the region to re-emerge as one of the major trade hubs of India as it used to be before the geo-political partition of India’s boundary.

As articulated by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, let us replace ‘work in progress’ with ‘work for progress’ leading to ‘wealth for progress’.