Goyal Reviews Infrastructure Projects on PMG Portal

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New Delhi : Railways, Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal chaired a meeting to review 17 large-size infrastructure projects on February 27, 2020, in Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), New Delhi. A total of 36 issues in 17 projects including BPCL’s Petroleum and Petrochemical projects at Rasayani, Maharashtra, with total anticipated investment of Rs 32,910 crore were reviewed.

The meeting was attended by Som Prakash, Minister of State for commerce and industry, senior officers of DPIIT, Chief Secretaries of Karnataka and Maharashtra, and senior officers of Jharkhand, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh (through Video Conference). Senior officials of key ministries including Railways, Power, Petroleum and Natural Gas, Road Transport and Highways as well as Invest India were also present to address the issues raised through the Project Monitoring Group (PMG).

Project Monitoring Group (PMG) is an institutional mechanism of DPIIT to expedite resolution of issues and removal of regulatory bottlenecks in projects, with investments upward of Rs 500 crore in India. Invest India provides implementational support to PMG in identifying and following up on issues with the States.

PMG enlists unresolved project issues of all Public, Private and ‘Public–Private Partnership’ (PPP) projects and undertakes fast-tracking of approvals, sectoral policy issues and removal of bottlenecks for expeditious commissioning. It has till date resolved more than 3,500 issues in 809 projects and has unlocked anticipated financial investment of more than Rs 32 lakh crore. At the moment, PMG and Invest India are handling 588 issues in 260 projects with total anticipated investment of Rs 10 lakh crore, according to a PIB release.

Goyal emphasised the importance of setting up additional transmission lines for power projects in the expanding city of Bangalore where power deficits had arisen earlier due to lack of infrastructure given high land prices for erecting new infrastructure.

Goyal also directed the Railways to prioritise investments in projects where the state provides for 100% land acquisition. He also called on States to review and prioritise their Railway projects while giving due importance to freight, keeping in mind economic development priorities of the state. He also suggested to disburse funds through letters of credit to optimally utilise working capital. He also directed all the States and Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEF & CC)  to consider the use of technology in tree transplantation to avoid tree cutting. He asked Addl. DGF, MoEF & CC to provide a concept paper on best technologies available for tree transplantation.