Gati Shakti National master plan portal to be ready by March end

A digital platform for the Gati Shakti national master plan of infrastructure projects will be ready by March 31, 2022. “All infrastructure projects will be mapped on the national masterplan [portal]. 75% of data from Central ministries on their infrastructure projects have already been uploaded. We are now training State governments to share their data. We are hopeful that the national masterplan [portal] will be ready by March-end,” said Amrit Lal Meena, Special Secretary, Department for Promotion of Investment and Internal Trade.
The Gati Shakti national master plan (NMP) announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 13, 2021, is a centralized portal, that will be enabling “institutionalizing” planning, designing, and execution among 17 different Ministries in the Centre as well as States. Including projects worth ₹100 lakh crore, the program aims to cut down logistical costs and improve supply chains.
“The national masterplan will show us geographical features such as forests, water bodies, mines, religious and archaeological sites and help us plan alignment of infrastructure projects so that we can circumvent these. Earlier, projects would be planned from within the confines of offices,” added Meena.
The portal at present has already been populated by 370 “layers” of data critical for infrastructure planning, comprising information about the road, rail, port and inland waterways, aviation, natural gas pipeline, water supply pipelines, telecom infrastructure, forest wildlife, eco-sensitive zones, water resources, rivers, embankments, canals, dams, tourism sites, economic zones, industrial parks. It also comprises features like soil type, seismicity, etc.
Once ready, ready, all detailed project reports of infrastructure projects will have to be prepared on the portal, which will be scrutinized and appraised by a Network Planning Group (NPG) at the Centre.