From PM GatiShakti to ITLA: discuss how India's institutions for multi-modal infrastructure planning have evolved.

India's logistics cost is 7.97% of GDP (DPIIT–NCAER, 2023-24) [4]. Much of it comes from roads, rail and ports being planned in separate silos. India's institutions have moved in steps: first ministries coordinating with each other, then a common policy, and now a single apex authority.

Stage 1: PM GatiShakti (2021), coordination through a shared platform

• The National Master Plan brought ministries onto one digital planning platform [2].
• An Empowered Group of Secretaries, chaired by the Cabinet Secretary, oversees it. A Network Planning Group (NPG) of 8 infrastructure ministries checks projects from a multi-modal angle. In the first year, 76 NPG projects and 81 high-impact projects were examined [2].
• Limit: this is ministries reviewing each other's projects one at a time. There is no long-term plan of its own.

Stage 2: National Logistics Policy (2022), targets and data

• It complements GatiShakti. Its goals are logistics cost at global benchmarks and a top-25 Logistics Performance Index rank by 2030 [3].
• SMILE (city logistics plans) and LEADS (ranking states on logistics) brought in states, but SMILE covers only 8 pilot cities [4].

Stage 3: ITLA (2026), an apex authority

• Approved by the Cabinet as a Special Purpose Vehicle [1].
• It prepares a 10+ year National Transport Master Plan. Ministries' 5-year and annual plans are checked against it [1].
• It does technical appraisal of projects worth ₹500 crore or more, monitors them, resolves bottlenecks and assesses impact after completion [1].
• A National Transport Data Repository combines GSTN e-way bill, FASTag and Vahan data [1].

GatiShakti (2021) → NLP (2022) → ITLA (2026)
 coordinate          set targets     plan, appraise, monitor

Fig: Evolution from coordination to an apex authority

Remaining gaps

• Overlap: it is unclear what happens to the NPG [1]. Projects may need two separate clearances.
• Federal reach: ITLA is an executive SPV, not a statutory body. Improving the first and last 50 km of a trip, which usually means state and city roads, matters most for cost [4]. Yet these small links fall outside ITLA's plan and below its ₹500-crore threshold.
• Data privacy: pooling tax, toll and vehicle-registration data needs safeguards on how it is used.

India's institutions have grown from cooperation among ministries into one planning authority. To make that shift real, ITLA should absorb the NPG's project checks, extend SMILE to more cities, publish its impact assessments, and track progress against the DPIIT–NCAER cost baseline [4]. Done this way, ITLA can support cooperative federalism and SDG 9 (resilient infrastructure).