PM GatiShakti roll-out gets Impetus: EGoS holds its first meeting

The Government has constituted an Empowered Group of Secretaries (EGoS) headed by Cabinet Secretary with Secretaries of 20 Infrastructure and Economic User Ministries as members of EGoS to monitor implementation of PM GatiShakti.

The first meeting of EGoS was held under the chairmanship of the Cabinet Secretary. The CEO Niti Aayog was a special invitee for the first meeting of EGOS. The EGoS reviewed the progress made so far.

GatiShakti National Master Plan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to provide multimodal connectivity to various Economic Zones in the country. PM GatiShakti aims to reduce logistics costs.

Currently, the logistics cost in India is about 13 per cent of the GDP whereas in other developed countries it is to the extent of 8 per cent. Government is committed to reduce the cost of logistics to ensure the competitiveness of our manufacturing sector, the better realisation of prices to farmers and the availability of goods at cheaper prices to consumers.

Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geoinformatics (BISAG-N), which has developed the National Master Plan informed the EGoS that over 300 layers of data have been mapped onto GIS-based national master plan. It was further informed that all the Central Ministries and most of the State Governments have started updating their required layers.

Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), being the nodal department for PM GatiShatki informed about the administrative arrangements made for monitoring and coordination of PM GatiShakti. Network Planning Group (NPG) comprising representatives from 7 Central Ministries has already been constituted. High Powered Expert Group of Professionals is being constituted to support the NPG.

The EGoS made several important decisions in the meeting. It has been decided to compile the infrastructural gaps as felt by various Economic Ministries. This is to be forwarded to the concerned Infrastructure Ministry for appropriate consideration to include in the annual action plan for the next financial year.

A decision was made to study the multimodal connectivity to all the economic zones in the country on priority so that gaps are identified. Any such system or process, which is causing enhanced logistics cost are to be identified and deliberated upon and measures are to be taken including necessary administrative decisions to reduce cost.

Meanwhile, EGoS emphasised the need for digitisation. It was felt necessary to integrate all management information systems of different to enable ease of usage. EGoS has also emphasised that all the Ministries should include in their planning logistics cost reduction at the core to achieve the objective of PM GatiShakti.