DPIIT, MeitY draft guidelines to make GatiShakti portal public in August

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) are working towards finalising the guidelines to make the Prime Minister GatiShakti National Master Plan portal available to the public.

“The launch is expected next month. It will help private players get access to the portal, which in turn will help them in the execution of infrastructure projects,” a senior government official told Business Standard.

Currently, only central government ministries, departments and states can access the portal to plan, coordinate and execute infrastructure projects in a time-bound manner.

The master plan is a comprehensive database of ongoing and future infrastructure projects of various ministries. All the existing and proposed economic zones have been mapped in the portal, which carries the details of multimodal connectivity infrastructure. It has details of the plans up to 2024-25, has integrated data and details of the status as of 2014-15, and the achievements made till 2020-21.

Preparing protocols for private users' access is crucial, as there is a need to keep in mind the data and national security concerns. For this reason, MeitY has been roped in to work on the guidelines, another official said.

Experts said that by making it public, the portal will eliminate the need for an initial onsite visit, thereby cutting investment cycles and helping make an informed decision. Similarly, private developers may also want to understand what stage the project is in, assess the condition of the project, and the number of approvals required and pending.

“Depending on what type of information is shared with private investors, the GatiShakti portal should help them prioritise projects for investments and fast-track investment decisions. The investment cycle will speed up further as and when online approvals, land allotments in industrial parks, etc. are enabled,” said Arindam Guha, partner, government and public services leader, Deloitte India.

The master plan aims to address the challenges such as disjointed planning, non- or under-utilisation of installed capacity, and delay in various clearances that India’s infrastructure sector is fraught with.

Government departments have started to use the Gati Shakti-led digital technology initiative to reduce the execution time of infrastructure projects.

GatiShakti has incorporated the infrastructure schemes of various ministries and state governments, such as Bharatmala, Sagarmala, inland waterways, dry/land ports, UDAN. Economic zones such as textile clusters, pharmaceutical clusters, defence corridors, electronic parks, industrial corridors, and fishing clusters are being covered to improve connectivity.