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Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal said on Thursday that PM GatiShakti National Master Plan and National Logistics Policy (NLP) together will greatly help both businesses and people.

The Minister was addressing a gathering at the Indian Chamber of Commerce's (ICC) National Conference on GatiShakti here. Goyal expressed his appreciation for the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC), which is based in Eastern India for coming to Delhi to engage with an initiative as crucial as GatiShakti.

The Minister said that the world today recognised India as a leader of innovation. He observed that India has been rapidly developing new tools for good governance, ease of living, and ease of doing business, such as PM GatiShakti National Master Plan.

He observed that gone were the days when India had to wait for decades for new ideas and technology to emerge in the west and adopt them to help businesses and people.

He cited the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) framework as an example of India's technological prowess, and an initiative which has had a deep impact on the country's economy. He further informed that in December last year, India had clocked 7.28 billion digital financial transactions in one month, thanks to UPI. The Minister added that the world was now aspiring to adopt UPI for digital financial transactions.

He went on to demystify PM GatiShakti, explaining that it created layers of data where different geological, ecological and infrastructural elements across the country were mapped and captured.

Currently, there are about 1300 layers of data, consisting of forests, wildlife sanctuaries, rivers, UNESCO world heritage sites, among others, he said and added that GatiShakti would not only address critical gaps in infrastructure but also help in planning social infrastructure such as schools, nursing homes, hospitals, etc.

The Minister further explained that the data layers of GatiShakti engage with each other through APIs, and if an alignment of a particular project was put into GatiShakti, it would highlight the challenges of implementation and help re-align the project, saving time and cost. He also highlighted that 12 states have digitised their land, which further strengthened the planning.

Reducing the cost of logistics is critical to achieving India's goal of becoming a developed country by 2047, he said, adding that PM GatiShakti, if used well, will help bring down logistics costs tremendously.

He highlighted that all highways, railways, ports, and airports were mapped on GatiShakti, which would help in building seamless connectivity networks and creating a positive impact on the logistics ecosystem.

The Minister stressed that GatiShakti is a national approach that has come out of exhaustive consultations and collective, collaborative efforts of countless stakeholders.

He concluded by expressing confidence that with the enthusiasm that he saw among the people of the country and the turbo-powered work that is happening in several fields, India may surpass the mark of becoming a USD 32 trillion economy by 2047.