Solution

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. The digital platform of the Gati Shakti project brings 16 Ministries, including Railways and Highways, together for integrated planning and coordinated implementation of infrastructure connectivity projects and allows departments to break operational silos. The Bhaskaracharya National Institute for Space Applications and Geoinformatics (BISAG-N) in Gujarat has been roped in to provide satellite images and GIS mapping of the projects that will be taken up under the scheme. BISAG-N will be tracking the infrastructure and other land-use changes in the border villages for real-time monitoring. About Vibrant Villages plan It is a Centrally sponsored scheme, announced in the Union Budget 2022-23 (to 2025-26) for development of villages on the northern border, thus improving the quality of life of people living in identified border villages. It will cover the border areas of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Ladakh. It will cover 2,963 villages with 663 of them to be covered in the first phase. Vibrant Village Action Plans will be created by the district adminstration with the help of Gram Panchayats. About PM Gati Shakti The government of India launched the ambitious Gati Shakti scheme or National Master Plan for multi-modal connectivity plan, with the aim of coordinated planning and execution of infrastructure projects to bring down logistics costs.