Special Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry with the Project Monitoring Group (PMG Invest India) reviewed 40 critical infrastructure projects across India with issues enlisted for resolution with Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change and Ministry of Railways today. These included 11 projects previously reviewed under PRAGATI by the Hon’ble Prime Minister and several GatiShakti High Impact Projects as well.

The meeting saw active participation from senior officials from Ministry of Forests, Environment and Climate Change and Ministry of Railways to discuss issues relating, forest clearances, use of railways land, right of way etc. The two Ministries provided cogent timelines for issue resolution. Additionally, officials from User Agencies also provided perspectives on overall progress of projects.

Among the projects reviewed, a few notable names are as follows:

• BharatNet- The broadband connectivity plan seeks to bring broadband to 361,000 villages across 16 states and is scheduled to be completed by 2025.
• Hubli-Ankola New Line Project (164.44 km), a super critical Railway project which was stuck due to litigation issues regarding wildlife clearance given by the National Board of Wildlife
• Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) corridor connecting Sarai Kale Khan in Delhi with Modipuram in Meerut passing through key towns such as Sahibabad, Ghaziabad, Muradnagar and Modinagar in Uttar Pradesh covering a total length of 82.15 km.
• Four laning of Bangalore - Chennai Expressway (NE-5), a 260.85 km 4-lane access-controlled road connecting Hoskote near Bengaluru, Karnataka with Sriperumbudur near Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

Special Secretary, DPIIT reviewed 57 issues in 40 projects with an anticipated investment of approximately INR 3.37 lakh crores and emphasized upon the importance of timely completion of projects and the role of seamless coordination between the various departments of the Central Government to ensure that projects having high socio-economic importance are not delayed. Further, Special Secretary was particularly appreciative of the exemplary work done by Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change in streamlining the regulatory process for obtaining environment/forest/wildlife clearances and extensive reforms taken in this regard for ensuring timely commissioning of infrastructure projects across India.

Infrastructure being the central cog in India’s growth journey and driving its socio-economic development, the Government of India has prioritized the timely implementation and completion of large scale, high impact Infrastructure projects in India.

Considering the emphasis of the Central Government on GatiShakti and continuing the focus on infrastructure development and resolving bottlenecks being faced in projects, the Project Monitoring Group (PMG) was instituted. Since its merger with DPIIT in 2019, PMG Invest India has taken new initiatives such as developing a modern technology portal for better project monitoring and faster issue resolution. It offers a unique institutional mechanism to facilitate resolution of regulatory bottlenecks in infrastructure projects with investments upward of ₹ 500 crores and do milestone-based project monitoring of the same.

Project monitoring for critical infrastructure projects accelerates regulatory bottleneck resolution and streamlines environmental and land clearances. DPIIT reviewed 40 critical infrastructure projects, identifying 57 regulatory and land use issues requiring coordinated resolution by environment and rail authorities, and highlighted streamlined processes for environment, forest and wildlife clearances. The Project Monitoring mechanism within DPIIT was affirmed as the institutional vehicle for prioritising high impact projects, providing milestone based oversight, leveraging a technology portal for faster issue resolution, and facilitating inter ministerial coordination to prevent delays in large scale infrastructure implementation.