Four infrastructure projects of roads and railways worth Rs 23,500 crore have been recommended for approval under the PM Gati Shakti initiative. These projects were assessed in the 58th Network Planning Group (NPG) meeting on October 17.
“Road and railway projects for multimodal connectivity with project cost of more than Rs 23,500 crore were discussed in the NPG,” the commerce and industry ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.The meeting was chaired by Special Secretary (Logistics), Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Sumita Dawra.She requested the ministries to incorporate the area development planning approach in project planning and have the interactions with states, which should ensure identification of infrastructural gaps and promote integrated planning.
The inter-ministerial NPG meets every fortnight and appraises infra projects to ensure multi-modality, synchronisation of efforts, and comprehensive development in and around the project location.
The initiative was launched to develop an integrated infrastructure to reduce logistics costs. All logistics and connectivity infrastructure projects, entailing investments of over Rs 500 crore are routed through the NPG.
The NPG’s approval is required before clearance of the project by the Public Investment Board (PIB) or Department of Expenditure under the finance ministry.
Maximum projects recommended by the group are related to roads, railways and urban development.
