EgoS to compile infrastructural gaps of ministries for inclusion in action plan for FY ’23
New Delhi, Dec 19 (Representative) With India looking at the economic recovery in the country to chart a strong trajectory of growth, the Empowered Group of Secretaries (EGoS) headed by Cabinet Secretary and constituted to monitor implementation of PM GatiShakti has decided to give a strong impetus to the plan by compiling infrastructural gaps as felt by various economic ministries. The inputs will then be forwarded to the concerned infrastructure ministry for appropriate consideration and for inclusion in the annual action plan for FY2022-23.
The EgoS which comprises member secretaries of 20 infrastructure and economic ministries, in its first meeting held on 17th December under the chairmanship of Cabinet Secretary, decided to study multimodal connectivity to all the economic zones in the country on priority so that gaps are identified. The idea is to deliberate on any such system or process which is causing enhanced logistics cost and upon and identify measures to be taken including necessary administrative decisions so as to reduce cost. The EGoS also emphasised on digitisation given the necessity to integrate all management information systems of different departments to enable ease of usage and that all ministries should include in their planning logistics cost reduction at the core so as to achieve the objective of PM GatiShakti.
Amitabh Kant, CEO of Niti Aayog was a special invitee for the first meeting of the EGoS. The PM GatiShakti National Master Plan launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for providing multimodal connectivity to various economic zones in the country, aims to reduce the logistics cost which currently, in India, is about 13% of the GDP whereas in other developed countries it is to the extent of 8%. The reduction of the cost of logistics will ensure competitiveness of the manufacturing sector, better realisation of prices to farmers and availability of goods at cheaper prices to consumers. A review of the progress made so far by EGoS shows that over 300 layers of data has been mapped on to GIS based national master plan by the Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geoinformatics (BISAG-N) which has developed the Master Plan. Moreover, all Central Ministries and most of the state governments have started updation of their required layers. On the administrative arrangements made for monitoring and coordination of PM GatiShakti, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) which is the nodal department for the programme, informed that a Network Planning Group comprising representatives from 7 Central Ministries has already been constituted and a high powered expert group of professionals is being constituted to support the NPG.