Highlight the importance of the Gati Shakti Mission in addressing the issues of infrastructure bottlenecks and streamlining the governance processes.

Gati Shakti Mission or National Master Plan for multi-modal connectivity, is the ambitious mission of the government of India, with the aim of integrated planning and execution of infrastructure projects to bring down logistics costs. It will subsume the National Infrastructure Pipeline costing a whopping  110 lakh crore in itself.

Addressing the infrastructural bottlenecks:

• It will help to map the existing and proposed connectivity projects.
• It will link different regions and industrial hubs in the country, and last-mile connectivity will be provided.
• It will integrate different modes of transport and will support Make in India.
• The scheme will help to increase cargo handling capacity and reduce the turnaround time at ports.

Streamlining governance process:

• Gati Shakti Digital Platform is created for better coordination between various ministries & departments to plan and implement infrastructure projects in an efficient manner.
• It works in an integrated manner by bringing together 16 infrastructure-related Ministries.
• The integrated approach will help in removing long-standing issues such as disjointed planning, lack of standardization, clearance problems, and timely creation & utilization of infrastructure capacities.

Gati Shakti is a step in the right direction to make India, the business capital of the world. However, the speed of implementation is slow due to land acquisition delays, environmental clearances, and litigation issues. Due to its huge capital requirements, it needs to address structural and macroeconomic stability concerns.

Topics: GS-II: Government Policies and Interventions for Development in Various Sectors • GS-III: Infrastructure Ports Roads Airports Railways