Context

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) will make all logistics and connectivity infrastructure projects to route through the Network planning group (NPG).

• NPG was constituted under the PM Gati Shakti initiative.

Background

• Traditionally, there was lack of coordination between different Departments.
• For example, once a road was constructed, other agencies dug up the constructed road again for activities like laying of underground cables, gas pipelines etc.
• To address this, efforts were made to increase coordination so that all the work could be done simultaneously.
• Steps have also been taken to address other issues like time-taking approval process, multiplicity of regulatory clearances etc.
• In the last few years, the Government has ensured unprecedented focus on infrastructure through a holistic outlook. This helps to address the past issues through institutionalizing holistic planning for stakeholders for major infrastructure projects.
• Instead of planning & designing separately in silos, the projects will be designed and executed with a common vision.

What are Network Planning Groups?                        

• NPG consists of heads of the network planning wing of respective infrastructure ministries and it will assist the empowered group of secretaries (EGOS), which is headed by the cabinet secretary.
• EGOS consist of secretaries of 18 ministries as members and Head of Logistics Division, under the DPIIT, as member convenor.

Key highlights of the initiative

• Gatishakti is a digital platform that will bring 16 ministries including railways and roadways together for integrated planning and coordinated implementation of infrastructure connectivity projects.
• This will help in removing long-standing issues such as disjointed planning, lack of standardization, problems with clearances, and timely creation and utilization of infrastructure capacities.
• It will also allow various government departments to track, in real-timeand at one centralized place, the progress of various projects.
• It will help different departments to prioritize their projects through cross-sectoral interactions.
• The Gatishakti platform aims to prevent overlapping of works by addressing the issue of government departments working in tandem.
• By incorporating infrastructure schemes under various ministries and states, the platform aims at boosting last-mile connectivity bringing down logistics costs with integrated planning and reducing implementation overlaps.
• A project monitoring group under the Department of Promotion of industry and Internal trade (DPIIT) will monitor the progress of key projects in real-time.
• They will also report any inter-ministerial issues to a group of ministries, who will then aim to resolve these.
  
  

PM Gati Shakti PM Gati Shakti is based on six pillars: Comprehensiveness: It will include all the existing and planned initiatives of various Ministries and Departments with one centralized portal. Prioritization: Through this, different Departments will be able to prioritize their projects through cross-sectoral interactions. Optimization: The National Master Plan will assist different ministries in planning for projects after identification of critical gaps. Synchronization: Individual Ministries and Departments often work in silos. There is lack of coordination in planning and implementation of the project resulting in delays.  PM Gati Shakti will help in synchronizing the activities of each department, as well as of different layers of governance, in a holistic manner by ensuring coordination of work between them. Analytical: The plan will provide the entire data at one place with GIS based spatial planning and analytical tools having 200+ layers, enabling better visibility to the executing agency. Dynamic: All Ministries and Departments will now be able to visualize, review and monitor the progress of cross-sectoral projects, through the GIS platform, as the satellite imagery will give on-ground progress periodically and progress of the projects will be updated on a regular basis on the portal.

Need of the initiative

• To address the wide gap between macro planning and micro implementation due to the lack of coordination and advanced information sharing as departments think and work in silos.
• As per reports, studies estimate the logistics costs in India at about 13-14% of GDP as against about 7-8% in developed economies. With this high logistical cost, the competitiveness of India’s exports is greatly reduced.
• It will increase economic activities and create employment on a large scale due to the creation of quality infrastructure for sustainable development.
• The scheme is in synergy with the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) which was announced to provide a clear framework for monetization and give potential investors a ready list of assets to generate investor interest.
• A holistic and integrated transport connectivity strategy will greatly support ‘Make in India’ and integrate different modes of transport.
• Another push for such a scheme was the lack of demand in the post-Covid-19 scenario, which in turn led to a lack of private demand and investment demand.
• Due to land acquisition delays and litigation issues, the rate of implementation of projects is very slow on global standards- issues that the scheme will address.

Conclusion

PM Gati Shakti scheme is a move in the right direction, but it needs to address structural and macroeconomic stability concerns arising from high public expenditure.Thus, this initiative must be supported by a stable and predictable regulatory and institutional framework.

Q1. What is the network planning group envisaged under PM Gati Shakti? Highlighting its function, discuss the concerns associated with it. Q2. What are the six pillars of PM Gati Shakti? Discuss the significance of PM Gati Shakti for the Indian economic growth.