Cabinet clears Gati Shakti National Master Plan for infrastructure

The Union cabinet on Thursday cleared the PM Gati Shakti - National Master Plan for multi-modal connectivity to economic zones.

“The PM GatiShakti NMP is intended to break Departmental Silos and bring in more holistic and integrated planning and execution of projects with a view to address the issues of Multi Modal connectivity and last mile connectivity,” the cabinet said in a statement.

“This will help in bringing down the logistics cost. This will translate into enormous economic gains to consumers, farmers, youth as well as those engaged in businesses,” it added.

This comes a week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the ₹100 lakh crore national master plan for multi-modal connectivity.

As per the PM, Gati Shakti targets to cut logistic costs, increase cargo handling capacity and reduce the turnaround time.

“The plan aims to lend more power and speed to projects by connecting all concerned departments on one platform,” he said, adding “the infrastructure schemes of various ministries and state governments will be designed and executed with a common vision.”

In addition to this, Chandrajit Banerjee, the director-general of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) had said that the master plan would spur manufacturing competitiveness facilitating ease of doing business through improved connectivity.

“GatiShakti Master Plan would spur manufacturing competitiveness by facilitating ease of doing business through improved connectivity and is a giant step towards unlocking India's growth potential and creating jobs,” he said. 

The plan has garnered appreciation from various stakeholders. 

Recently, Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla said that PM Gati Shakti plan will improve the quality of life of Indians.

“This was a meaningful programme which will have a huge impact on the cost of doing business. I think it will also improve the quality of life of Indians,” Birla was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

Assocham Secretary-General Deepak Sood said the launch of the PM Gati Shakti programme is a landmark policy and execution enabler for providing ultra-speed to crucial infrastructure projects as India would see a cohesive approach to a holistic development.

“The Gati Shakti programme would infuse a great sense of urgency to the USD 1.5-trillion National Infrastructure Pipeline across different sectors, be it railways, ports, airports, waterways, gas pipelines,” he said.