Current Affairs 2022: Mission Gati Shakti Plan and Its Components

By Yash Singhal

Mission Gati Shakti was launched by the Government of India. It is a comprehensive plan to revive the activities to build India's infrastructure. Read here for details.

Mission Gati Shakti is designed to offer an opportunity to all to participate in the development of India’s journey to become a five Trillion-dollar economy. Let’s discuss how the government has to boost the Indian economy to attract global players for the benefit of citizens. 

Mission Gati Shakti is not a focused sector scheme but it is a holistic approach to bring 16 ministries together for integrated and rapid development of the country’s infrastructure development projects. It is multi-modal connectivity for the easy and rapid movement of people, goods and services across different channels. It was launched in 2019, with a budgeted capital expenditure of 110 Lakh Crore Indian Rupees. Under this project, 36 State Governments and 16 Union ministries will work together to build a National Infrastructure Pipeline that will help in the robust growth of the economy. Along with that, the government has also planned to attract FDI to fulfil their goal of becoming the fastest-growing marketplace and 5th largest economy by 2025. 

6 Pillars of Mission Gati Shakti

There are six pillars of Mission Gati Shakti. The pillars can be enumerated as follows:

Comprehensiveness – In this, all the planned schemes and initiatives of all the ministries have one centralized portal. Through this portal the cabinet can have a progress report of each department and ministries for the proper coordination among each other and also a top panel, that has been constituted for checking the progress, can directly share reports and give suggestions to the concerned ministry to revamp the speed of implementation of projects.

Prioritization – Under this, ministries can have a deeper understanding of their implementation of projects and can also prioritize their projects through cross-sectional interactions. 

Optimization – This master plan will help ministries and another department to optimize and plan efficiently for the implementation of projects and also in identifying crucial gaps. 

Synchronisation – Through this, the government aims to provide better coordination between different ministries that was lacking previously, resulting in a delay in planning and lack of effective implementation of projects across the country. Hence it will provide effective coordination between different ministries, different layers of governance and ensure effective coordination among them.

Analytical – Under this mission, it will provide entire data in one place with GIS-based spatial planning and analytical tools having a couple of hundreds of layers for efficient planning of and better visibility to executing agency. 

Dynamic – Now as the different ministries and different departments can monitor progress in cross-sectoral projects, it will help in identifying the critical interventions for enhancing and updating this mater plan. 

Aim of Mission Gati Shakti:

The following are some of the main aims of Mission Gati Shakti:

Slashing logistics cost incurred and revamping turnaround time

It aims to reduce logistics costs by offering world-class infrastructure through wide highways, better reach through length and breadth of the country and developing inland waterways port as well. It also aims to provide power and speedy transportation of goods and services. 

Setting up an ambitious target

This mission provided ways to achieve ambitious plans that were set by the government for 2024-25, which includes different schemes like the Bhartmala project, Sagarmala, UDAN etc. and projects like expanding the highway network to 200 Lakh Kms, building up 200 airports, heliports and water aerodromes across the country. 

Defence Corridors

Two new defence corridors were proposed to develop for rapid transit of military and its equipment across the country so that in case of any security threat, military personnel can easy movement. 

Building robust digital connection

This mission also plans to build robust digital connections throughout the country and extend 4G connectivity even to the last village of the country. Under this project, a 17,000 Km long gas pipeline network is being planned. 

Importance of Mission Gati Shakti

This pandemic has hit the country badly, which resulted in a major economic crackdown. Hence if it was not launched back in 2019, then we can assume what the pandemic have had done to the country. Covid-19 resulted in major capital spending across the globe. Along with that mission, Gati Shakti has also helped the nation in building world-class infrastructure, that will attract foreign players to enhance demographic dividend in the region. Moreover, the Indo- China Standoff and the pandemic have detracted the economy; thus, if this mission was not introduced back in 2019 then it might have created a crisis in the country. Also to boost the ‘Make in India’ and ‘Atamnirbahar Bharat’ it will give a great opportunity to the country to attract Foreign Direct Investment(FDI) and that will enhance more job opportunities and higher living standards for the citizens. This project also aims to upgrade the country to 4G technology.

Also during the pandemic, the anti-china sentiments that developed across the globe helped India only due to this mission and also to take one step more towards its goal of Atamnirbar Bharat. Even in the budget presented on 1st Feb 2022, Finance Minister Hon. Nirmala Sitharam relied on the capital expenditure as it is the need of the hour. This will result in enhancing more job creations and helping in the overall growth of the nation across all sectors.

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