Gati Shakti

ECONOMY/ GOVERNANCE

• GS-2: Infrastructure & Economy
• GS-2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Gati Shakti

Context: In his Independence-day speech, the PM has announced a ₹100 lakh crore “Gati Shakti” infrastructure plan.

What is Gati Shakti Master Plan?

• It is a Rs. 100 lakh-crore project for developing ‘holistic infrastructure’.
• The plan is aimed at easier interconnectivity between road, rail, air and waterways to reduce travel time, improve industrial productivity and developing synergies towards building a more harmonised infrastructure.
• The push for infrastructure is in line with the government’s efforts to step up capital expenditure in infrastructure to promote economic growth.

Significance

• Logistics Grid: With Gati Shakti, India will be able to build an integrated, harmonised transportation and logistics grid. Such a grid will help bring down logistics & supply cost of India.

• Enhances Supply Chain Efficiency: It helps build new supply-side capacities & enhances supply chain efficiency that can set the wheels of growth in motion and move towards the ambitious mission of a $5-trillion economy
• Coordinated Governance: To have all utility and infrastructure planning under an umbrella framework will ensures coordinated planning, cut down ministerial delays, and leads to faster decision making.
• Attracts FDI: Having an umbrella framework under Gati Shakti provides clarity & stability to investors thereby attracting Foreign Direct investment into infrastructure sector.
• Scope for New Economic Corridors: Increased investment by domestic & foreign investors for new infrastructure creations open the doors for new future economic zones
• Improves Connectivity: It will ensure last-mile connectivity to economic zones in a definite timeframe. 
• Increased Competitiveness of exports: Supply chain inefficiencies add to product costs, and thus, run the risk of making our exports uncompetitive vis-à-vis other international export players. Dedicated infrastructure development under Gati Shakti, therefore, improves India’s infrastructure capacity and global export competitiveness with regard to manufacturing in India. 
• Data for Policy Making: The geographic information system (GIS)-enabled digital platform under Gati Shakti will provide useful data — including a region’s topography, satellite images, physical features, maps of existing facilities and so on — for ministries, thus, helping them save on funds and time for approvals.
• Enhances India’s share in cargo business: India’s share in the international cargo business was worth ₹1,686 crore in 2019-20, which rose to ₹2,644 crore in 2020-21 (a 57% increase). Having a harmonised & integrated logistics hub will help increase this share.

Conclusion

Thus, Gati Shakti could pave the way for a culture of multimodality, where sea, road, rail and air transport modes do not compete with each other, but rather, complement each other.

Connecting the dots:

• PM Gram Sadak Yojana
• Railway Freight Corridors
• Industrial Corridors