GatiShakti Sanchar portal

In news– In line with the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan, the Union Minister for Communications has recently launched the “GatiShakti Sanchar” portal (named Sugam sanchar) for Centralised Right of Way (RoW) approvals.

About the portal-

The portal has been developed keeping in view the vision areas of the National Broadband Mission at the core, which are, providing broadband infrastructure as a core utility to every citizen, Governance and services on demand and in particular, digital empowerment of the citizens of our country.
National Broadband Mission (NBM) was set up by the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) on December 17, 2019; to facilitate universal and equitable access to broadband services across the country, especially in rural and remote areas.
This portal will provide a robust mechanism to achieve the goal of “Broadband for All” as envisaged in the National Digital Communication Policy-2.
The portal shall act as an enabler to the objective of “Ease of doing business” for telecommunications infrastructure works.
The timely disposal of RoW applications of various Service and Infrastructure providers shall enable speedy infrastructure creation which would be an enabler for timely rollout of 5G Network also.
The portal will enable applicants form various Telecom Service providers (TSPs) as well as Infrastructure providers (IPs) to apply at a common single portal for Right of Way permissions to lay down Optical Fibre Cable and for erecting mobile towers to State/UT Governments and local bodies.
As it smoothens the process of RoW permissions as well as faster approvals; it is believed to facilitate easy rollout of 5G services, in which a Base Transceiver Station (BTS) is installed at very short intervals.
For effective monitoring of RoW applications across the country, the portal even comes fitted with a potent dashboard showing State and District wise pendency status.
The portal will also bring an array of advantages to the Government Bodies- both Central and State/UT. It will smoothen the RoW approval process, which will lead to:
- Fast laying of more Optical Fiber Cable and thus will accelerate fiberization.
- Increased tower density which will enhance connectivity and improve the quality of various telecom services.
- Increased fiberization of telecom towers, thus ensuring better Broadband speed, across the country.
The portal has been developed by Madhya Pradesh state Electronics Development Corporation on behalf of DoT.

Pradhan Mantri Gatishakti National Master Plan(PMGNMP)-

It is a 100 lakh crore national infrastructure master plan which will create a foundation for holistic infrastructure and give an integrated pathway to our economy.
It was launched on 13th October 2021 for providing multimodal connectivity infrastructure to various economic zones.
Gatishakti will help local manufacturers turn globally competitive and develop possibilities of new future economic zones.
It will bring employment opportunities for youth, help in holistic infrastructure growth.
The scope of the Plan will encompass the seven engines for economic transformation, seamless multimodal connectivity and logistics efficiency.
PM GatiShakti is a transformative approach for economic growth and sustainable development. The approach is driven by 7 engines, namely:

Railways.
Roads.
Ports.
Waterways.
Airports.
Mass Transport.
Logistics Infrastructure.

All 7 engines will pull forward the economy in unison. These engines are supported by the complementary roles of Energy Transmission, IT Communication, Bulk Water & Sewerage, and Social Infrastructure.
The approach is powered by Clean Energy and Sabka Prayas – the efforts of the Central Government, the state governments, and the private sector together – leading to huge job and entrepreneurial opportunities for all, especially the youth.
It will also include the infrastructure developed by the State Governments, as per the GatiShakti Master Plan.

The focus will be on planning, financing including through innovative ways, use of technology and speedier implementation.

The projects pertaining to these 7 engines in the “National Infrastructure Pipeline” will be aligned with PM GatiShakti framework.
The touchstone of the Master Plan will be world-class modern infrastructure and logistics synergy among different modes of movement – both of people and goods – and location of projects. This will help raise productivity and accelerate economic growth and development.
The plan has been developed as a Digital Master Planning tool by BISAG-N (Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and Geoinformatics) and has been prepared in dynamic Geographic Information System (GIS) platform wherein data on specific action plan of all the Ministries/Departments have been incorporated within a comprehensive database.
Dynamic mapping of all infrastructure projects with real- time updation will be provided by way of a map developed by BISAG-N.
The map will be built on open-source technologies and hosted securely on MEGHRAJ i.e. cloud of Govt. of India.
It will use satellite imagery available from ISRO and base maps from Survey of India.
Under this, the comprehensive database of the ongoing & future projects of various Ministries has been integrated with 200+ GIS layers thereby facilitating planning, designing and execution of the infrastructure projects with a common vision.
The data of all the individual Ministries will be integrated in one platform which will be available for planning, review and monitoring.
The Logistics Division, Ministry of Commerce & Industry (MOCI) will further assist all the stakeholders through BISAG-N for creating and updating their required layers in the system and update their database through Application Programming Interface (APIs).