The Economic Survey on Tuesday listed that roads, railways and waterways infrastructure have seen unprecedented expansion in the last eight years while ports and airports have been substantially upgraded. The survey also pointed out that logistics costs in India have been in the range of 14-18 per cent of GDP against the global benchmark of 8 per cent.
The report tabled by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharama said support for India's economic growth will come from path-breaking measures like PM GatiShakti, National Logistics Policy and Production-Linked Incentives schemes.
The PM Gati Shakti - National Master Plan was announced in 2021 to break departmental silos and bring in more holistic and integrated planning and execution of projects to address the issues of multi-modal and last-mile connectivities.
The projects pertaining to seven engines (roads, railways, airports, ports, mass transport, waterways and logistic infrastructure) in the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) will be aligned with PM Gati Shakti framework.
Noting that to bring in further convergence with comprehensive planning across the Centre and states, PM GatiShakti has sectoral complementarity of logistics facilitation through the National Logistics Policy launched in September 2022, the survey said,
Applauding the Railways' efforts for recovering in both the passenger and freight segments post the Covid pandemic, the Economic Survey for 2022-23 has credited the government for substantial increase in funds that has allowed the national transporter to augment infrastructure at a fast pace.
Passenger traffic originating in the Indian Railway was Rs 809 crore during pre-Covid period (2019-20), but dipped to 125 crore in 2020-21, it said. It has since recovered to Rs 351.9 crore in 2021-22. During the current financial year, passenger traffic has seen further strong growth with the number of originating passengers already hitting 418.4 crore (up to November 2022), the survey said.
In the case of revenue-earning, freight traffic was sustained by Indian Railways despite the Covid shock. "Between FY20-21 and FY21-22, there was a sharp increase in the freight traffic, reflecting the strong revival in the economic activity in the domestic economy.