Pragati platform expedited infrastructure projects worth ₹85 lakh crore: Cabinet secretary

The Union government’s Pragati platform, a digital governance system headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has quickened the pace of execution of critical infrastructure projects worth ₹85 lakh crore across the country since its launch in 2015, helping to resolve, on average, one issue each working day, Union cabinet secretary TV Somanathan said briefing reporters on Friday.

The platform has cut cost and time overruns of some of the most complex infrastructure facilities in the country, which in the usual course would have stretched, in some cases, till 2039, the top bureaucrat said.

Nearly 93% of 3187 issues spanning 382 projects were escalated and resolved directly at the level of the prime minister, accelerating their commissioning. Somanathan cited the example of the Jammu-Uddhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link, conceived in January 1994, as a key example of timely interventions to ensure speedy completion. The link, costing ₹42,760 crore, was opened on June 6, 2025. “The project, without the intervention of the Paragati platform and given the usual pace, would have achieved completion in January 2038,” the bureaucrat said, citing a simulation. The 272-km rail link that runs through some of the most treacherous terrain in Jammu and Kashmir needed extraordinary coordination, he said.

Featuring the highest railway bridge in the world over a gorge, with a deck height of 1178 feet, the link consists of 38 tunnels spanning 119 km and 943 bridges across deep ravines.

“At the apex of the system, the Prime Minister chairs Pragati review meetings directly with chief secretaries of states and secretaries of central ministries to address issues in specific projects and schemes,” the Cabinet secretary said. In the 50th meeting held on Wednesday, the PM reviewed five critical infrastructure projects spanning five states, with a cumulative cost of over ₹40,000 crore.

Large projects have often been by hobbled by massive cost and time overruns in the world’s fifth largest economy. An analysis of a total of 7,156 issues resolved through Pragati showed that nearly three-fourths of the problems were related to land acquisition, forest clearances and issues over right of use, especially involving railway and road projects, according to Somanathan’s presentation.

Pragati, designed to continuously monitor projects worth ₹500 crore or more at multiple levels and resolve hurdles through a five-tier escalation mechanism right up to the level of the PM, has helped boost infrastructure spending. Capital expenditure has jumped 3.6 times, from ₹4.26 lakh crore in 2014-15 to ₹15.53 lakh crore in 2025-26 (budget estimates), according to Somanathan.

“The main causes of this are three key coordination problems. First, there are problems in horizontal coordination between central ministries. Secondly, there are vertical coordination problems between the Centre, states and local governments. Third, there are coordination issues within state governments,” he said.

Pragati is designed to address these problems by improving coordination across different tiers of government, he said. Efforts involving intra-government departments and local governments via the platform have helped removed a gamut of hurdles from a total of 3300-plus projects, Somanathan said.