PM GatiShakti effective mechanism for fast-tracking infra: DPIIT official

The PM GatiShakti initiative is an effective mechanism for fast-tracking infrastructure projects and bringing socio-economic area-based development, an official statement said on Thursday.

The remark was made by Special Secretary (Logistics) in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Sumita Dawra during a regional cooperation and integration conference, organised by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) at Tbilisi, Georgia, on September 5-7.

The objective of the conference was to explore ways to integrate an area-centric approach with economic corridor development (ECD) and strengthen regional cooperation.

The commerce and industry ministry statement said that while global pioneers were brought together by ADB to brainstorm over broadening the scope of its ECD framework for regional cooperation, the special secretary highlighted that India has already operationalised the initiative for infrastructure development.

PM GatiShakti NMP, a GIS data-based digital platform with more than 1,400 data layers and over 50 tools, provides a visual depiction of trunk and utility infrastructure, land use, existing structures (like bridge and railway crossing), soil quality, habitation sprawl, tourism sites, forest-sensitive areas, and functionalities for data-based decisionmaking such as site suitability, among others.

"Since the launch of this programme, 100 projects worth USD 71.26 billion have been evaluated during 54 meetings of the Network Planning Group, a critical institutional body established for ensuring adoption of GatiShakti principles in infrastructure planning," the statement said.

Highlighting examples of the Indo-Nepal Haldia Access Controlled Corridor project for seamless connectivity and trade movement between Nepal and eastern Indian states, and the Regional Waterways Grid (RWG) project for multimodal connectivity to growth centres and border points, she showcased the PM GatiShakti adoption in enhancing connectivity with regional partners.

At the same time, she suggested that ADB and partner countries can draw lessons for broadening the scope of their regional cooperation programmes like South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) by integrating area-centric growth models on the lines of this initiative.