Private access, public good: Gati Shakti data should not be limited

The Union government, as reported by this newspaper, is considering limited sharing of information from the Gati Shakti National Masterplan with the private sector. It would do well to consider the proposal favourably. This three-year-old digital platform, which aimed to bring ministries together to enable coordinated planning and implementation of multimodal connectivity projects, was set up to address the key weaknesses of project execution in India. The lack of harmonised integration between ministries involved in megaprojects and the haphazard data have long been the source of faulty planning and consequent delays. Gati Shakti incorporates most of the Centre’s and the states’ megaprojects such as Bharatmala, Sagarmala, UDAN, defence corridors, and myriad economic zones. Till October, 208 big-ticket infrastructure projects, worth Rs 15.39 trillion, of various ministries have been assessed in consonance with broad Gati Shakti principles designed to improve the ease of doing business. When set against the massive Rs 6 trillion national monetisation pipeline, under which the government plans to lease core assets in key infrastructure areas — roads, railways, telecom, airports, power, oil and so on — to the private sector to generate resources for new investment in infrastructure, it makes sense to allow the private sector involved in these large projects to access the data that underlies these assets to enable more optimal decision-making. This apart, the government is hoping to encourage the private sector to shoulder some of the burden on infrastructure spending.

 

In a country where integrated data from open sources is hard to come by, the platform offers an invaluable resource for private companies executing megaprojects across states and markets. This is because the Gati Shakti project aims to standardise data. According to the government, so far the master plan has 44 central ministries and 36 states and Union Territories on board and 1,614 data layers have also been integrated. To ensure data accuracy, key infrastructure ministries have finalised standard operating procedures (SOPs) for a three-tier system. SOPs for eight infrastructure ministries and 15 social-sector ministries have been notified, with development continuing for other ministries, and states and Union Territories. The involvement of private companies may also help improve the quality of the data, a metric that is yet to be independently assessed. The other critical point about Gati Shakti is that it offers potential beyond the hard metrics of infrastructure planning and project execution, enabling social planning as well. For instance, the Department of School Education and Literacy used the portal to link PM Shri Schools with local industries for district-specific skill training. Access to the portal also enabled the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship to identify suitable locations for new training institutes near economic clusters.

 

Much of the success of this data-sharing proposal, which is expected to be considered in a meeting of the empowered group of secretaries, headed by the Cabinet secretary, lies in the degree to which access is granted. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has already expressed reservations on account of data security. Certainly, there is the risk of private firms monetising this valuable data with all the attendant security concerns. But this risk exists for government functionaries with access to such data; private companies should not be excluded under the broad rubric of “national security”. To avoid misuse, the portal can set up rigorous access protocols for the private sector.