Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the launch of the PM Gati Shakti.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Social sector infrastructure like hospitals, anganwadi, schools and colleges, will become a part of the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan that seeks to facilitate holistic planning for infrastructure development, a senior government official said on Tuesday.
“We are now planning to cover not just infrastructure but social sector including planning of hospitals, Anganwadi, schools, college, etc. to optimise and have a data-based decision-making process for building any new infrastructure in the social sector,” said Rajesh Kumar Singh, Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).
“We are now also trying to focus on not only network planning and social infrastructure but area planning as well,” Singh said at an event organised jointly by DPIIT and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).
PM GatiShakti National Master Plan (GSNMP) was launched in October 2021 for providing multimodal connectivity infrastructure to various economic zones.
The notion behind GSNMP is to introduce multimodal transport for freight movement in the country, to increase the modal share of rail, port and inland water transport. Multimodal transport implies the movement of goods from point A to point B using at least two different modes of transport by a single transport operator.
Currently, around 64% of India’s freight is transported through road, while around 27% is transported through rail. As per the master plan, the government’s target is to reduce dependence on roads for freight transportation.
“PM GatiShakti is a transformative approach to integrated planning of multi-modal infrastructure, last-mile connectivity, reducing logistics cost and ensuring seamless movement of people and goods,” said Sumita Dawra, Special Secretary (Logistics), DPIIT.
Dawra said the GaktiShakti platform has played an important role in reducing logistic cost.