New Delhi: History provides eloquent testimony, if any was needed, that empires rise, flourish and flounder and that connectivity and logistics invariably provide part, if not the entire explanation for the same. Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka built highways along an ancient route called Uttarapatha in the third century BC. Sher Shah Suri expanded on this network in the 16th Century and rebuilt this ancient path of commerce linking ports in Dhaka with Kashmir and Kanyakumari.
The 190 years of British colonial domination has its own story to tell. Yes, they did build railways, ports and bridges, but mainly with the objective of mining out wealth from India and shipping it across the seas to England or exporting raw cotton and importing cloth made in the mills of Lancashire and Manchester. The British left behind a disorganized patchwork of bureaucratic silos, the rail system built by them providing a good example. Their organisations were designed to be commandeered for an imperial exploitation of India rather than synergetic nation building.
In earlier regimes, this fractionated style of policy making and execution would hold back the economic development of India leading to unequal distribution of wealth and opportunities. New infrastructure development was less than comprehensive, and even then chaotically executed. We became used to the perpetuity of signboards saying ‘Work in progress, go slow’ as different Govt. departments would work without coordination and visibility, for e.g. digging up newly laid new roads for laying utility and optical fibre cables.
The Prime Minister’s Gati Shakti plan is a bold step in changing the status of progress of the nation from ‘Go slow’ to ’Go fast’. Over the past seven years, our Government has taken giant strides in simplifying and integrating disparate policies and procedures for accelerating development. GST simplified the taxation of goods and services while Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mudra bought in instant Direct Benefit Transfer into bank accounts. Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, UDAN, Jal Vikas Marg, industrial and freight corridors, Bharatmala and Sagarmala projects have given a big boost to the infrastructure and industrial prowess of the country.
Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, we rolled out One Nation One Ration Card, Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission and Atma Nirbhar Bharat mission. We have been able to formulate, mass-produce, transport, administer and follow-up almost 1 billion doses of a temperature-sensitive novel vaccine. Indian consumers today enjoy same-day or next-day deliveries on e-commerce platforms and the time has come for the government to deliver to these standards. The Indian logistics sector, already a $ 200 billion market, is set to grow at over 10 per cent CAGR in the next five years to reach around $ 330 billion and power a $ 5 trillion Indian economy. However, the cost of Indian logistics remains high at 13-14 per cent of GDP compared to developed nations where these costs amount to 8-10 per cent of GDP.
India’s modal mix is heavily skewed towards road, with 60-65 per cent per cent of transport happening via road compared to 25-30 per cent per cent in developed countries, prompting higher costs. The rail freight business depends excessively on coal and domestic waterways face numerous challenges due to high first-and last-mile cost, unavailability of return load in most cases, high voyage costs for specialized vessels and high repositioning cost of domestic containers among others.
PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan will herald in a new era of infrastructure development and multimodal logistics. We will synergize major infrastructure development projects of multiple ministries under one Master Plan. We will be able to optimize different modes of logistics to reduce freight costs and increase the competitiveness of our industry, drive in investment and create millions of jobs. We will leverage technology and geospatial mapping to create an online dashboard which will let Central and State agencies, departments and PSUs as well as private players to have a bird's eye view of existing as each other’s planned development throughout the country.
We have come a long way in a short span of 7 years. Highway construction per day in India increased almost 300 per cent from 12 km per day in 2014-15 to 33.7 km per day in 2020-21. With the PM Gati Shakti Master Plan, we will increase India’s highway network to 2 lakh km and provision utility corridors for laying adjoining power and optical fibre cables which will be a life-saver in times of natural disasters especially in flood and cyclone prone states. India embarked on an unprecedented scale of urban infrastructure development spending almost Rs 11.5 lakh crore in the past seven years compared to just 1.5 lakh crores spent in the 10 years between 2004 and 2014.
Metro rail network has been expanded to 721 km of metro line today in 18 cities from 250 km in 2014, and a network of 1,058 km of metro network is under construction in 27 cities across the country. The PM Gati Shakti Master Plan will further augment urban infrastructure development by streamlining planning and approvals, and integrating civic amenities. We have been working hard to increase the share of natural gas in the country’s energy mix to 15 per cent from the current 7 per cent as natural gas is not only a cleaner source of energy but also efficiently transported through pipelines.
Since 2014, India has increased the length of its gas pipeline network from 14,700 KM to 18,500 KM, supplying 29 mmscmd gas to thermal and steel plants, and 44 mmscmd gas to fertilizer plants. Under PM Gati Shakti, an additional 15,000 km of gas pipelines will be integrated into steel, thermal, agricultural and other gas-dependent infrastructure projects. It is difficult to fully visualize the sheer scale of development and investments planned under the umbrella of PM Gati Shakti Master Plan. It will be an inflection point in the history of our nation. It will transform the Indian infrastructure and logistics to compete with the world’s leading economies. Future generations will look back and remark at an India before PM Gati Shakti Master Plan and an India after it. /PIB/
(The author is Union Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas and Housing & Urban Affairs)
