Frequently Asked Questions - PM GatiShakti National Master Plan

PM GatiShakti is an approach for growth accelerating trustworthy infrastructure through synchronized, holistic, integrated and comprehensive planning based on knowledge, technology and innovation.

PM GatiShakti National Master Plan provides comprehensive database of the ongoing & future projects of various Ministries i.e. Infrastructure Ministries & Ministries and States involved in development of Economic Zones, integrated with 200+ GIS layers thereby facilitating planning, designing and execution of the infrastructure projects with a common vision.

In the National Master Plan, all the existing and proposed economic zones have been mapped along with the multimodal connectivity infrastructure in a single platform ranging in three time periods, i.e. status as on 2014-15, achievements made by 2020-21 and planned interventions up to 2024-25.

Hon’ble Prime Minister launched the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan for providing multimodal connectivity infrastructure to various economic zones on 13th October 2021. Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has accorded approval on the implementation of PM GatiShakti National Master Plan on 21st October 2021. PM GatiShakti National Master Plan will go a long way in making our local manufacturers globally competitive and this will also develop new possibilities for the creation of future economic zones.

PM GatiShakti aims to create Next Generation Infrastructure by learning from the past. PM GatiShakti National Master Plan is as an integrated plan which will address the missing gaps to ensure seamless movement of people, goods & services. It aims to enhance ease of living, ease of doing business, minimize disruptions and expedite completion of works with cost efficiencies.

PM GatiShakti will help in achieving the objective of an ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ by providing visibility to various stakeholders. Instead of planning & designing separately in silos, the projects will be designed and executed with a common vision. It will incorporate the infrastructure schemes of various Ministries and State Governments like Bharatmala, Sagarmala, inland waterways, dry/land ports, UDAN. Economic Zones like textile clusters, pharmaceutical clusters, defence corridors, electronic parks, industrial corridors, fishing clusters, agri zones etc. will be covered to improve connectivity & make Indian businesses more competitive. This will boost economic growth, attract foreign investments and enhance the country’s global competitiveness.

PM GatiShakti is a new vision for integrated planning, synchronised time bound implementation. Hon’ble Prime Minister has launched the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan for providing multimodal connectivity infrastructure to various economic zones on 13th October 2021. Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has accorded approval on the implementation of PM GatiShakti National Master Plan on 21st October 2021.

It was felt necessary to break the silos and to integrate all the existing/planned initiatives of the various Ministries/Departments being undertaken for better synergy as part of a comprehensive National Master Plan with multimodal connectivity to various Economic Zones. PM GatiShakti - National Master Plan, has been prepared depicting the economic zones and the infrastructure linkages required to support them with an objective to holistically integrate all the multimodal connectivity projects and remove missing gaps for seamless movement.

Using an integrated approach, the National Master Plan aims at achieving enhanced efficiency through:

i. Comprehensiveness by including all the existing/ planned initiatives of various Ministries/ Departments covering various Infrastructure Ministries & Ministries involved in development of Economic Zones with 200+ layers with 01 centralized portal providing visibility to all the stakeholders. For example, the implementation agency of Railways may not know the upcoming projects of other Departments like irrigation, roads, economic zones, industrial clusters etc. Through this plan, each & every Department will now have visibility of each other’s activities providing critical data while planning & execution of projects in a comprehensive manner.

ii. Prioritization by enabling different departments to prioritize their projects through cross – sectoral interactions. For example, Shendra and Bidkin near Aurangabad in Maharashtra are 02 economic zones getting developed under National Industrial Corridor Programme. To provide better connectivity to these zones, 02 road projects have been prioritized after extensive interactions between National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) and got included under Bharatmala Scheme of MoRTH. It will also get connected to Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Mahamarg. This prioritization will help industries of these zones to get better connectivity for sourcing the raw material/labour and evacuation of their final product. Similarly, whenever any economic zone is established in future, infrastructure connectivity projects can now be prioritized by respective departments with the help of this plan to provide timely connectivity.

iii.Optimization by assisting different ministries in planning for modification/ expansion/ new projects after identification of critical gaps. For example, if coal has to be transported from Jabalpur to Mundra Port, the most cost effective and less time-consuming route of rail and road network can now be identified through this plan which will lead to reduction in the overall logistic cost. This plan will also help the Rail and Road Ministries to identify the critical routes for modification, expansion etc. to achieve better efficiencies.

iv.Synchronization by providing visibility and coordination in planning and implementation of projects of individual Departments/Ministries thereby resulting in delays/clashes/unsystematic development. For example, different types of roads are being implemented by multiple agencies in North East Region under various schemes by NHIDCL, State PWD Department, PMGSY Roads by Rural Development Department, Border Roads by Border Roads Organization (BRO) etc. NHAI constructs the roads till District Headquarters, thereafter, it is constructed by State PWD or by Rural Development Department to the habitations and to the border areas by BRO. This plan will help in synchronizing the activities of each department in a holistic manner by ensuring coordination of work between them. The coordinated completion of all these roads executed at the same time by these different agencies will help the seamless connectivity to the habitants of that area and open up numerous avenues for them.

v. Analysis by providing the entire data at one place with GIS based spatial planning and analytical tools having 200+ layers like land use, existing structures (e.g. bridge, railway crossing, culvert), soil quality, infrastructure (Road, Rail, Waterway etc.), elevation data/3D (contour and gradient), habitation sprawl etc. enabling better visibility to the executing agency. For example, many infrastructure contracts go into litigation as the Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the project do not have complete information about the structures and the likely hindrances etc. in and around the project area. Contractors meet with uncertainties while executing, which delays execution and leads to litigation. This plan provides the visibility to users like contractors/agencies for avoiding such situations.

vi.Dynamic process by helping in identifying the vital interventions for enhancing and updating the master plan. All Ministries/Departments can visualize, review, monitor the progress of cross-sectoral projects through this Plan. They can work together to avoid conflicts and achieve better efficiencies.

Infrastructure creation in India has for decades suffered from disjointed planning, non/under-utilization of installed capacity, lack of standardization, synchronization, issues of clearances/approvals & other inter-departmental issues. GatiShakti aims at resolving these issues and the same is being explained herein below by way of following practical examples:

i. Disjointed Planning: It has been observed on numerous occasions that once a road is constructed, some of the other agencies dig up the constructed road again for various activities like shifting/laying of underground cables, gas/water pipelines etc. This results in these stretches of roads being continuously under some or the other construction, not only causing great inconvenience to the common man but also results in wasteful expenditures being incurred by different Departments.GatiShakti aims at resolving this issue by establishing synergies among different departments during the planning stage itself.As has been successfully demonstrated in the Integrated Corridor approach adopted by Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways (MoRTH) in DelhiMumbai Expressway Project and Trans Haryana Corridor Project wherein the Right of Way (RoW) of utility corridor is being acquired along-with the RoW of expressways leading to saving of time and avoiding digging of roads again and again by different agencies at a later date.

ii. Non/ Under Utilization of Installed Capacity: It has been often observed that due to inefficient planning, several projects despite their timely completion are not running upto their optimum capacity and are being under-utilized resulting in loss of revenue and resources. One such example is LNG terminal which was commissioned in 2013-14 but because of lack of integrated planning, pipeline connectivity to various demand centers in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka with LNG terminal could not be completed due to ROU acquisition issues in the States. The pipelines were to be laid at about the same time. Initially only 41 KM pipeline was supplying gas to region around Kochi City only and terminal capacity was underutilized. Kochi Mangalore pipeline section was commissioned in November, 2020. With the laying of pipeline connectivity to demand centers, the utilization has improved. If the execution of the road and rail connectivity were aligned with the completion timelines of a port, the problem of under-utilization of capacity would have not arisen. GatiShakti not only aims at aligning the timelines of various projects through efficient planning, but also aims at taking initiatives even after completion of the project to overcome the past inefficiencies thereby minimizing the losses. As has been demonstrated by the Ministry of Shipping through several interventions, involving upgradation of infrastructure for movement of goods from the port by improving the last mile connectivity in addition to various policy interventions like Direct Port Delivery (DPD) which facilitates the delivery of the container directly from the terminal without being taken to Container Freight Stations (CFS). This has ensured that the customer can avail the direct delivery thus, saving the overall logistics cost of Rs 8,000-20,000, as well as saving time by 4-5 days. This and other interventions have resulted in the clearance of the containers at a very faster speed. In 2014-15, on an average it used to take nearly 79 Hrs for an import container to get cleared out of the port which has drastically come down to 25 Hrs in 2019-20.

iii. Lack of Standardization: Previous practice has always been to design each and every part of infrastructure as if it is a unique construction. Such as each Railway Over Bridge (ROB) is designed as a separate project by the MoRTH which later requires approval by the Ministry of Railways (MoR). Most of the time these designs are similar but approval process is stretched to several years causing huge inconvenience to general public and loss to the exchequer.
GatiShakti aims at resolving this issue by promoting standardization of the designs so that the approval could be completed in a very short span of time.
As has been successfully demonstrated by Ministry of Railways (MoR) by implementing the Rail Road Crossing General Alignment Drawing Approval System, an online all-in-one approval portal wherein the list of drawings for Rail Road Crossings are available along with guidelines for planning of road over bridges. This has reduced the time from 6 months to 2-3 months in getting relevant approvals from the MoR.

iv. Lack of coordination and Clearances/Approvals & Other Inter-Departmental Issues:Execution of projects requires a host of regulatory approvals and environmental clearance, land acquisition proceedings, shifting of utilities, specifications and drawings so on and so forth. Absence of any of one such approval adversely impacts the timely completion of the project and has been happening quite frequently in the past.
One such example is the case of Delhi - Meerut Expressway – Package II, wherein the overall project was delayed by 11 months due to delay in approval and issuance of clearance for General Agreement Drawings (GADs) from Railways. The entire road construction was completed, however the approval of just one Road over Bridge (RoB) resulted in the delay in commissioning of the project.
GatiShakti aims at facilitating the laying down of standardized procedures/ timelines by all the agencies providing such clearances, in order to reduce delays considerably.
As has been successfully demonstrated by Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Control (MoEF&CC) in institutionalizing the practice of accepting the applications for Environmental Clearance (EC) for different projects only through online mode which has expedited the entire process with a view to increase transparency and facilitating early decision making. The above initiative has resulted in reducing the average time period for environmental clearances from around 600 days to around 162 days.

List of Ministry/Department

1. Ministry of Railways
2. Ministry of Road, Transport & Highways
3. Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways
4. Ministry of Civil Aviation
5. Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas
6. Ministry of Power
7. Department of Telecommunications
8. Ministry of Coal
9. Ministry of Mines
10. Department of Chemicals & Petro-Chemicals
11. Department of Fertilizers
12. Ministry of Steel
13. Department of Expenditure
14. Department for Food and PDS
15. Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare
16. Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying
17. Ministry of Tourism
18. Ministry of Commerce and Industry
19. NITI Aayog
20. Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs
21. Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology

As the GatiShakti National Master Plan will progress, other Ministries will also get included.

The multi-modal connectivity will provide seamless movement of people, goods and services from one mode of transport to another. National Master Plan will facilitate the last mile connectivity of the infrastructure so that road, rail, power, optic fiber cable, gas pipeline etc. are available to the people.

Public transport platforms such as the Indian Railways, Metro Trains, Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS), Interstate Buses, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) as well as Aviation can no longer operate in isolation and must come together to provide integrated and seamless connectivity to commuters. This needs to start with integrated planning for implementation of efficient interchanges.

For example, Sarai Kale Khan and Anand Vihar RRTS stations have been planned by dovetailing the existing infrastructure and the proposed projects, like Bus Terminal, Metro, Railway Station, Taxi Stand, Shopping Complex, Office Spaces etc., of various agencies for development of the Multi Modal plans for this area. This will provide safe & weather protected transit with seamless interchanges thus, promoting ease of living for the people. This concept is proposed to be replicated at important interchanges as prioritized under the plan.

The plan will provide the public and business community information regarding the upcoming connectivity projects, other business hubs, industrial areas and surrounding environment. This will enable the investors to plan their businesses at suitable locations leading to enhanced synergies.

For example, Bargur SIPCOT Industrial Estate in Krishnagiri District was established in 1993 in an area of 1,093 acres. However, on account of nonavailability of road and rail connectivity, the response of industrial land was very weak due to which only 30 percent land could be allotted till 2020. If the road and rail connectivity was ensured beforehand while developing an industrial estate, the take-off of the project would have been faster.

On the contrary, in the National Industrial Corridor Programme where new greenfield industrial cities are getting developed, the multi modal connectivity is planned from the very beginning in coordination with various line departments/ ministries so that once the Industrial Area is ready with all the plug n play infrastructure facilities, the to and fro connectivity through various modes is also available. Moreover, environmental clearances, common facilities and single window clearance system required by industries are being provided upfront facilitating ease of doing business for the industries.

An Economic Zone is a cluster where any economic activity in the form of manufacturing unit or value addition services or other services, is being carried out. One of the important features of the PM GatiShakti - National Master Plan, is the establishment of new Economic Zones to boost ease of doing business in India. All the existing and proposed economic zones have been mapped along with the multimodal connectivity infrastructure in a single platform.

PM GatiShakti National Master Plan has been developed as a Digital Master Planning tool by BISAG-N (Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and Geoinformatics) and has been prepared in dynamic Geographic Information System (GIS) platform wherein data on specific action plan of all the Ministries/Departments have been incorporated within a comprehensive database. Dynamic mapping of all infrastructure projects with realtime updation will be provided by way of a map developed by BISAG-N. The map will be built on open-source technologies and hosted securely on Meghraj i.e. GoI cloud. It will use Satellite imagery available from ISRO and basemaps from Survey of India.

The digital system is a software where individual Ministries will be given separate user identification (login ids) to update their data on a periodic basis. The data of all the individual Ministries will be integrated in one platform which will be available for planning, review and monitoring. The Logistics Division, Ministry of Commerce will further assist all the stakeholders through BISAG-N for creating and updating their required layers in the system and update their database through Application Programming Interface (APIs).

The institutional framework for rolling out, implementation, monitoring and support mechanism is designed to have a three-tier system –

• i. Empowered Group of Secretaries (EGOs)
• ii. Network Planning Group (NPG)
• iii. Technical Support Unit (TSU)

An Empowered Group of Secretaries (EGoS) under the Chairmanship of Cabinet Secretary has been constituted for monitoring the Master Plan and for approving any changes in the Master Plan to meet any emerging requirements. The EGoS will also look at the interventions required to meet the demand side, in efficiently transporting bulk goods based on the requirements of various Ministries like Steel, Coal, Fertilizer etc.

An Integrated Multimodal Network Planning Group (NPG) with heads of Network Planning Division of all connectivity infrastructure Ministries & Departments is responsible for unified planning and integration of the proposals and assist the EGOS in respect of its mandate.

NPG will facilitate regular interactions between the stakeholders. It will guide all the Departments/ Ministries responsible for creation of economic zones and connectivity infrastructure during the planning phase itself. The parameters/prescribed norms of the overall National Master Plan will be the overarching objective of the NPG for examining and sanctioning future projects thus leading to minimising of disruptions and strive for the creation of an ideal & efficient operating system for all infrastructure projects in the country. NPG’s role will be to ensure:

• integration of networks;
• enhance optimization through modification/expansion/new network creation;
• avoid duplication of works for holistic development of any region;
• reduction logistics costs through micro-plan detailing.

A Technical Support Unit (TSU) has been constituted in the Logistics Division with 7 representatives from Line Ministries (Director Level). Officers from these Ministries to be placed on deputation to the Logistics Division. TSU will have 14 domain/subject matter experts with 15-20 years of experience under following verticals:

To break the silos in Govt. Ministries/Department, Network Planning Group (NPG) will act as a catalyst to further intensive and regular coordination between various Ministries/Departments of GoI along with the State Governments and private sector industries/experts/stakeholders for unified planning and integration of the proposals and assist the EGOS in respect of its TORs.

The coordination between Ministries/Departments is pivotal and role of NPG is crucial to achieve the integration of infrastructure projects.

NPG will facilitate regular interactions between the stakeholders. It will guide all the Departments/ Ministries responsible for creation of economic zones and connectivity infrastructure during the planning phase itself. The parameters/prescribed norms of the overall PM GatiShakti - National Master Plan will be the overarching objective of the NPG for examining and recommending future projects thus leading to minimising of disruptions and strive for the creation of an ideal & efficient operating system for all infrastructure projects in the country.

The primary role of the Central Ministries is to break the silos and start working in co-ordination with each other under the umbrella of PM GatiShakti National Master Plan for multimodal connectivity. All the existing/planned initiatives/schemes of the various Ministries/ Departments like Bharatmala, Sagarmala, inland waterways, dry/land ports, UDAN have been integrated as part of PM GatiShakti- National Master Plan.

Further, the Ministries will regularly update the PM GatiShakti GIS portal. Also, share new proposals with NPG which will examine and sanction future projects from the perspective of multi-modal connectivity, thus, leading to minimising of disruptions and strive for the creation of an ideal & efficient operating system for all infrastructure projects in the country.

The State governments have large infrastructure responsibilities spread across departments and agencies. Success of PM GatiShakti National Master Plan for multi modal connectivity largely depends upon the coordination between:

• various Central Ministries/Departments with various State Government/Departments
• various Departments within a State
• various Departments of a State with various Departments of another States.

It is essential that a PM GatiShakti State Master Plan be prepared for providing multi-modal connectivity infrastructure for various economic zones in the State. It is further envisaged that State-level EGOS headed by Chief Secretary on the pattern of EGOS is also constituted. Similarly, creation of NPG at State Level and also TSU in industries departments of State Governments are required.

The District Administration will help in ground-level implementation of the planned initiatives/projects under PM GatiShakti including expediting the district level approval processes. It is essential that required layers of data is mapped on GIS platform. Its visualization and utility by district administration will help in attaining the objective. Also, it will help in identifying district level projects which will complement the initiatives/projects of the Central Ministries/Departments and State Governments.

To achieve its mandate to develop and integrated cost-effective, reliable, sustainable and digitally enabled logistics ecosystem in the country in coordination with the respective line Ministries/Departments, the role of Logistics Division will be as under:

• Further develop and monitor the National Master Plan (NMP) in coordination with the respective line Ministries;
• Operationalise the Network Planning Group (NPG) & the Technical Support Unit (TSU);
• Handhold all stakeholders and provide capacity building on the use of the Monitoring Tools for updating and sharing data;
• Identify projects which are vital or critical from multimodal connectivity point of view through Network Planning Group (NPG);
• Coordinate for upgradation of the NMP portal from time to time and use the monitoring tools for review by the EGoS, NPG and other stakeholders;
• Act as Secretariat to the Empowered Group of Secretaries (EGoS) for its ToR.

PM GatiShakti - National Master Plan provides an integrated platform where all the economic zones and their multimodal connectivity infrastructure have been depicted with an aim to boost the economic and overall development of the region. The same will provide physical linkages to promote comprehensive and integrated multimodal national network of transportation and logistics thereby enabling smooth transportation of goods, people and services to create efficiency gains and avenues for further developments, value addition and creating employment opportunities.

The Plan holistically look at the interventions required to be taken for reduction in the cost of logistics like encouraging higher use of alternate fuels like LNG/methanol and rationalisation of taxes/GST on improving procedures for seamless multimodal transport as well as consider transportation of high value items by air. It also looks at the interventions required to efficiently transport bulk goods based on the demand side requirement of various Ministries like Steel, Coal, Fertilizer etc.

Few challenges being faced by the logistic sector of India are as follows:

1. High Logistics Cost: India’s Logistics cost approx. 14% of GDP. Transportation and Warehousing contributing more than 60% of the cost.
2. Performance in Global Rankings: India’s Ease of Doing Business ranking (2019): 63, Logistics Performance Index (2018): 44 The ranking can be improved with an optimized logistics sector.
3. Standalone Digital Systems: Even though the departments serving logistics sector adopted the digitization, information flow between the systems is limited, making documentation and approval process very complex.

Few process reforms attempted through PM GatiShakti are as follows:

• Memo of Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) will have to be updated by each Ministry wherein they have to specify whether the same is in compliance of PM GatiShakti National Master Plan or not. If not, then why.
• Any deletion or inclusion of a project from PM GatiShakti National Master Plan can be done only with permission of EGOS.

Few digitization efforts made under PM GatiShakti are as follows:

• In the PM GatiShakti - National Master Plan, all the existing and proposed economic zones have been mapped along with the multimodal connectivity infrastructure in a single GIS platform ranging in three time periods, i.e., status as on 2014-15, achievements made by 2020-21 and planned interventions up to 2024-25 on BISAG-N Portal.
• For continuous updation of the master plan, individual ministries are creating APIs with BISAG-N.
• Logistic Data Bank (LDB) may synchronize physical infrastructure to promote comprehensive and integrated multimodal national network of transportation and logistics thereby, enabling smooth transportation of goods and services to various economic zones to create efficiency gains and avenues for further developments, value addition and creating employment opportunities.
• Unified Logistic Interface Platform (ULIP) - the softer infrastructure of ULIP and LDB may be integrated under PM GatiShakti.

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