In line with the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of expanding the outreach of the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan (NMP) platform for socio-economic development, Social Sector Ministries are being onboarded with the NMP in mission mode, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said on Thursday.

During a high-level meeting on the adoption of PM Gati Shakti NMP by Social Sector Ministries and Departments held yesterday, Special Secretary, Logistics Division, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Mrs Sumita Dawra, said that there is immeasurable potential for the adoption and augmentation of NMP in social sector planning.

As of date, 14 Social Sector Ministries and Departments have been onboarded, namely Ministries of Panchayati Raj, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, AYUSH, Culture, Housing and Urban Affairs, Rural Development, Women and Child Development, Tribal Affairs,  besides Departments of Health and Family Welfare, Post, School Education and Literacy and Higher Education, Youth Affairs, and Sports.

Individual portals of these Ministries and Departments have been developed and are integrated at the back-end with the NMP.

Sixty-one data layers of Social Sector Ministries related to infrastructure assets, such as primary and secondary schools, colleges, primary health centres, district hospitals, health sub-centres, public toilets, dump sites, Anganwadi centres, fair price shops, Amrit samovars, and dairy locations, etc., have been mapped on NMP.

Mrs Dawra stated that for wider adoption of PM GatiShakti NMP, a comprehensive area approach planning should be focused upon. She emphasized that Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) are to be developed by each social sector Ministry to serve as guidelines for data management, which may be replicated by States.

The focus of the inter-Ministerial meeting was on reviewing the status of the adoption of NMP for social sector planning and also on the measures to be taken for data management, i.e., improving the data quality, data uploading, and validation of data. The meeting saw the participation of 34 officers from all 14 Ministries and Departments.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development has developed a mobile application viz., Poshan Tracker for the collection of data regarding Anganwadi Centres (AWC) under the Mission Poshan 2.0. The collected data is geo-tagged and integrated with the NMP platform through API integration. So far, 9.27 lakh Anganwadi Centres have been captured and integrated on NMP through this application.

Further, after the mapping of the existing Anganwadi centres on the NMP platform, new areas were identified in terms for establishment of new Anganwadi Centres (AWC), based on parameters like local population, habitat clusters, distance between institutions, and using the site suitability tool on the NMP.

The Department of School Education and Literacy is using the NMP platform for identifying suitable sites for the opening of new schools through the use of the site suitability tool and mapping of data like road and rail network, population census data, and demographic layer for identifications of gaps.