June 15, 2023: Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on June 14 said that the PM Gati Shakti programme must be effectively leveraged using the Area-Development Approach to extend benefits to the nation beyond the infrastructure sector.
Considering infrastructure as a growth engine, the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan (NMP) was launched in October 2021.
Goyal chaired a meeting to review the progress of the programme with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and eight ministries including road transport, railways, ports, civil aviation, power, oil, etc.
The minister emphasised on the participating ministries/departments to harness the full potential of the integrated platform to further accelerate India’s infrastructure and economic growth. Goyal said that the agriculture sector can be supported by setting up common facilities on agricultural lands by cooperatives and start-ups using the integrated framework of the PM GatiShakti, and data from the National Master Plan (NMP). The minister highlighted that the area-development approach under the PM Gati Shakti can be used for engaging with aspirational districts of the NITI Aayog.
Special Secretary, DPIIT, Sumita Dawra presented the progress of the PM Gati Shakti programme in terms of improving the data quality of the NMP, standardising data layers and establishing quality improvement plan (QIP) mechanism for better planning.
To encourage usage of the NMP for social-sector planning, five new ministries are proposed to be on-boarded on the PM Gati Shakti in addition to fourteen social sector departments/ministries already onboard to augment the socioeconomic development in the country.
“In addition to improving the domestic logistics ecosystem, the DPIIT is progressively working towards improving the EXIM logistics. An action plan for improving the country’s performance on each of the Logistics Performance Index (LPI) parameters of the World Bank report will be formulated and executed soon,” the commerce ministry said in a statement.
“Efforts are also being made to ensure end-to-end multi-modal tracking of cargo by integrating Unified Logistics Interface Platform (ULIP) with GSTN data. In order to impart wider understanding and adoption, capacity building of officials at States level is also planned through training modules on the PM GatiShakti at Central Training Institutes,” it added.
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