GatiShakti: Govt looks to develop local areas via national masterplan

After making some progress in the implementation of infrastructure projects through the GatiShakti national masterplan, the government is eyeing area-based planning through which state governments will be able to holistically develop local areas with the help of the data available on the platform. 

Till now, the focus of GatiShakti was time-bound implementation of mostly central government-level infrastructure projects, though states are catching up. To get the entire benefit, going forward, the focus will be development of a region as a whole, a senior government official said, adding that towards this, as many as 100 projects for area planning has already been taken up.

“30 projects are in the planning stage. We are trying to see how the masterplan can be used for the holistic benefit of the economy. This may include planning areas of food joints, petrol pumps, display of culture, among others,” the official told Business Standard.

The GatiShakti national masterplan — a GIS-enabled platform — was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October 2021. It is a comprehensive database of ongoing and future infrastructure projects of various ministries integrated, with the larger idea to bring down logistics cost by addressing the issue of missing connectivity gaps as well as support data-based decision making.

The masterplan integrates the data layers of infrastructure of roads, railway lines, ports, inland waterways, telecom lines, power lines onto a single portal. More than 1,450 data layers have been mapped on the masterplan, of which 585 have been uploaded by 36 central ministries and departments and 872 have been uploaded by states and Union Territories. 

As many as 76 key infrastructure projects related to railways, highways shipping, industrial corridors, housing and urban affairs, among others worth Rs 5.14 trillion have been evaluated at the central government level as of now.

Social sector ministries are also being onboarded on the national masterplan through a series of meetings. As many as 61 data layers of social sector ministries related to infrastructure assets, such as primary and secondary schools, colleges, primary health centres, district hospitals, health sub-centres, public toilets, dump sites, anganwadi centres, fair price shops, Amrit samovars, and dairy locations, etc, have been mapped on the masterplan, according to an official statement earlier this month.