Gati Shakti Cargo Terminal: Indian Railways’ first Gati Shakti Cargo Terminal was recently inaugurated in the Eastern Railway’s Asansol division.

Key Points:

• The Asansol division of Indian Railways (IR) successfully commissioned a private siding of Maithan Power Limited at Thaparnagar, in accordance with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision “Gati Shakti” and the Ministry of Railways’ policy regarding the “Gati Shakti Multi-Modal Cargo Terminal” also known as GCT.
• This is the first such GCT commissioned in Indian Railways since the publication of the GCT policy in December 2021.
• The Maithan Power Project began construction in 2009, and power generation began in 2011.
• The coal required for the power plant was delivered via road, which is estimated to yield 120 inbound coal rakes every month.
• About two to four outward rakes of Fly Ash are expected to be handled from the siding area.
• The cargo facility is expected to boost railway earnings by roughly Rs 11 crore per month.

Significance:

• Rail transportation is beneficial to the economy because it is the most energy-efficient and cost-effective mode of transportation.
• The commissioning of this port, as well as other similar terminals, will have a significant positive impact on the nation’s economy.

About PM Gati Shakti:

• The Government of India (GoI) launched the ambitious Gati Shakti scheme or National Master Plan for multi-modal connectivity plan in 2021.
• This scheme was launched with an aim of coordinated planning and execution of infrastructure projects across all key infrastructure ministries, including railways, roads, waterways, and aviation, for the planning as well as execution of national infrastructure projects including all state governments.
• This initiative has brought together 16 ministries and departments of the Indian government, including the railways and roads.
• It will also incorporate the infrastructure schemes of various Ministries and State Governments like Sagarmala, Bharatmala, UDAN, inland waterways, dry/land ports, and so forth.
• Economic Zones like defence corridors, agri zones, electronic parks, industrial corridors, textile clusters, pharmaceutical clusters, fishing clusters will be covered to improve connectivity and make Indian businesses more competitive.
• It will also leverage technology extensively including spatial planning tools with ISRO imagery developed by BiSAG-N (Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and Geoinformatics).
• It will contribute to the government's ambitious 2024-25 goals, which include increasing the national highway network to 2 lakh kilometres and building more than 200 new airports, heliports, and water aerodromes.