A master plan for the Pradhan Mantri Gati Shakti for expressways, for faster movement of goods and people, will be formulated in 2022-23, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her Union Budget speech today.

“PM Gati Shakti master plan for expressways will be formulated in 2022-23 to facilitate faster movement of people and goods. The national highways network will be expanded by 25,000 km in 2022-23,” Sitharaman said.

“₹20,000 crore will be mobilised through innovative ways of financing to complement the public resources,” Sitharaman further added.

National Master Plan for Multi-modal Connectivity is essentially a digital platform to bring 16 Ministries, including Railways and Roadways, together for integrated planning and coordinated implementation of infrastructure connectivity projects.

Sitharaman also laid emphasis on logistics in her speech. She mentioned that contracts for implementation of multimodal logistic parks at four locations, through public-private partnership (PPP) mode, will be awarded in 2022-23.

“The data exchanges of all mode operators will be brought on unified logistics interface platform. Designed for application programming interface. This will provide for efficient movement of goods through different modes, reducing logistics costs and time, assisting just-in-time inventory management and eliminating tedious documentation. This will provide real-time information to all stakeholders and increase international competitiveness; open source mobility step for organising seamless travel of passenger will also be facilitated,” Sitharaman added.

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