Context:
The Centre’s ambitious Vibrant Villages Programme (VVP), which aims to develop infrastructure and open up villages along the China border to tourists, will be integrated with the Prime Minister’s Gati Shakti mega project.
Relevance:
GS III- Indian Economy (Infrastructure)
Dimensions of the Article:
- Key Points
- About Vibrant Village Programme
- About PM Gati Shakti
Key Points:
- Vibrant Villages Programme (VVP) aims to develop infrastructure and promote tourism in villages along China border
- The programme will be integrated with the Prime Minister Gati Shakti mega project, which brings 16 ministries together for coordinated infrastructure planning.
- Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and Geoinformatics (BISAG-N) will provide satellite images and GIS mapping of the projects for real-time monitoring.
- VVP aims to stop migration of border population and gather intelligence from people of border villages.
- The programme will cover 2,967 villages in 46 border blocks of 19 districts in four states and one union territory.
- Rs. 4,800 crore has been allocated for the financial years 2023-24, 2024-25, and 2025-26, with Rs. 2,500 crore allocated for road construction.
About Vibrant Village Programme
- The program’s goal is to enhance infrastructure in villages along India’s China border.
- In states like Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Arunachal Pradesh, infrastructure will be enhanced.
- Residential and tourism centres will be built as part of the programme.
- It will also facilitate the development of decentralised renewable energy sources and increase road connectivity.
- Aside from that, there will be direct access to Doordarshan and educational channels. A source of income will be offered.
Focus areas
- It emphasises the generation of livelihoods, road connectivity, housing, rural infrastructure, renewable energy, television, and broadband connections.
- This goal will be achieved by improving infrastructure in villages near the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
Need of such scheme:
- The programme is a rebuke to China’s model villages, but the term was picked with care to avoid causing a stir in the neighbouring country.
- In recent years, China has created new communities along the LAC, mainly across the Arunachal Pradesh border.
- Villages on the Indian side of the border have undergone unprecedented out-migration while China has been placing new citizens in border areas.
About PM Gati Shakti:
- It will incorporate the infrastructure schemes of various Ministries and State Governments like Bharatmala, Sagarmala, inland waterways, dry/land ports, UDAN etc.
- Economic Zones like textile clusters, pharmaceutical clusters, defence corridors, electronic parks, industrial corridors, fishing clusters, agri zones will be covered to improve connectivity & 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).
- The multi-modal connectivity will provide integrated and seamless connectivity for movement of people, goods and services from one mode of transport to another.
- It will facilitate the last mile connectivity of infrastructure and also reduce travel time for people.
- PM GatiShakti will provide the public and business community information regarding the upcoming connectivity projects, other business hubs, industrial areas and surrounding environment.
- This will enable the investors to plan their businesses at suitable locations leading to enhanced synergies.
- It will create multiple employment opportunities and give a boost to the economy.
- It will improve the global competitiveness of local products by cutting down the logistics costs and improving the supply chains, and also ensure proper linkages for local industry & consumers.
PM GatiShakti is based on six pillars:
1. Comprehensiveness: It will include all the existing and planned initiatives of various Ministries and Departments with one centralized portal. Each and every Department will now have visibility of each other’s activities providing critical data while planning & execution of projects in a comprehensive manner.
2. Prioritization: Through this, different Departments will be able to prioritize their projects through cross–sectoral interactions.
3. Optimization: The National Master Plan will assist different ministries in planning for projects after identification of critical gaps. For the transportation of the goods from one place to another, the plan will help in selecting the most optimum route in terms of time and cost.
4. Synchronization: Individual Ministries and Departments often work in silos. There is lack of coordination in planning and implementation of the project resulting in delays. PM GatiShakti will help in synchronizing the activities of each department, as well as of different layers of governance, in a holistic manner by ensuring coordination of work between them.
5. Analytical: The plan will provide the entire data at one place with GIS based spatial planning and analytical tools having 200+ layers, enabling better visibility to the executing agency.
6. Dynamic: All Ministries and Departments will now be able to visualize, review and monitor the progress of cross-sectoral projects, through the GIS platform, as the satellite imagery will give on-ground progress periodically and progress of the projects will be updated on a regular basis on the portal. It will help in identifying the vital interventions for enhancing and updating the master plan.
-Source: The Hindu
