Mahatma Gandhi NREGA National Master Plan (PMGS-NMP) was launched on 13th October 2021 for providing multimodal connectivity infrastructure to various economic zones. Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) accorded approval for the implementation of Mahatma Gandhi NREGA National Master Plan on 21st October 2021.

Mahatma Gandhi NREGA is a transformative approach for economic growth and sustainable development. The approach is driven by 7 engines, namely:

1. Railways
2. Roads
3. Ports
4. Waterways
5. Airports
6. Mass Transport
7. 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.

The scope of Mahatma Gandhi NREGA National Master Plan will encompass the 7 engines for economic transformation, seamless multimodal connectivity and logistics efficiency. It will also include the infrastructure developed by the State Governments, as per the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA 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 Mahatma Gandhi NREGA 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 NIC (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 NIC. 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. 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 digital system is a software where individual Ministries will be given separate user identification (login ids) to update their data on a periodic basis. 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 NIC for creating and updating their required layers in the system and update their database through Application Programming Interface (APIs).