PM Gati Shakti will help prevent cost overruns: Piyush Goyal

23 Aug 2022 CW Team

The Pradhan Mantri Gati Shakti National Master Plan will help develop infrastructure in a planned manner, prevent cost overruns, and increase India's cost competitiveness, besides saving taxpayers' money, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said last week.

He said 1,000 geospatial maps have been formed for forests, wildlife sanctuaries, highways and railway infrastructure, power plants and industrial zones in India. "Maps of states are also being integrated with them. By the last count, around 450 infrastructure data have been mapped," the minister said.

Gujarat-based Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics (BISAG-N), which works to implement map-based Geospatial Information Systems (GIS), has developed the PM Gati Shakti Master Plan, Goyal said.

"These maps are all interconnected, because of which the future infrastructure will be developed in a planned manner," he said at an investors' conference at Dholera in Gujarat.

He said the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan will help in planning the construction of an overbridge, diverting routes if a forest or wildlife sanctuary comes in the way, and figuring out how to construct a bridge with the smallest length for a river, etc.

"All these can be more effectively planned to prevent time and cost overrun so that the projects are completed in time. Its benefit will ultimately go to the citizens. Any delay in government projects or infrastructures is a waste of taxpayers' money," the minister said.

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