PM Modi Chairs 40th PRAGATI Meet, Reviews Eight Ongoing Infrastructure Projects Of Rs 60,000 Crore

Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi on Wednesday (25 May) chaired the meeting of the 40th edition of PRAGATI, the ICT based multi-modal platform for 'Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation,' involving Centre and State governments.

Nine agenda items were taken for review in the meeting, including eight projects and one programme having a cumulative cost of over Rs 59,900 crore.

Among the eight projects, two projects each were from the Ministry of Railways, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, and one project each from the Ministry of Power and Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation.

These eight projects are concerning the 14 states, namely Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Jharkhand.

Up to the 39 editions of PRAGATI meetings, 311 projects totalling Rs 14.82 lakh crore have been reviewed.

During the interaction, the prime minister also reviewed the 'National Broadband Mission. States and agencies were asked to leverage the centralised Gati Shakti Sanchar Portal to ensure timely disposal of Right of Way (RoW) applications. This move would expedite the implementation of the Mission.

The Prime Minister further said that States could formulate State level GatiShakti Master Plan along with the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan and constitute state-level units.

If implemented, this can go a long way in better planning, identifying and addressing critical issues and ensuring better coordination for timely execution of projects.

The Prime Minister said that the agencies working in the infrastructure sector, such as roads and railways, should map their projects with the water bodies being developed under Amrit Sarovar. He opined that this would be a win-win situation as the material dugout for the Amrit Sarovars can be utilised for civil works by the agencies.

Under the Amrit Mahotsav of Azadi, the Amrut Sarovar Yojana has been launched for water conservation, under which it has been decided to renovate or construct lakes in each district of the country.

India's first 'Amrit Sarovar' was inaugurated on 13 May 2022 at Rampur in Uttar Pradesh.