Bridging the gap between rich and poor, CM Devendra Fadnavis ensures employment through inducing Artificial Intelligence

Mumbai, June 13: Bridging the gap between the rich and poor, the Maharashtra government has joined hands with Quebec Company. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Tuesday that artificial intelligence will create more jobs. The technology could also help in facilitating the reach of health services to remote areas.

The state IT department signed a MoU with the Institute for Data Valorisation (IVADO) for setting up an AI accelerator in Maharashtra. The IVADO is an initiative based in Montreal working on setting up IA clusters across countries. The letter of intent was signed by the two countries. AI Next also signed an agreement with Maharashtra government to set up a joint AI accelerator to promote 50 start-ups AI units in Maharashtra.

 

Speaking at a panel discussion on Governance and Artificial Intelligence CM Devendra Fadnavis dismissed the fear among people of losing jobs due to artificial intelligence. Instead, he said, “On the contrary, it will create even more jobs and not just that, it will repair and solve many problems. Artificial intelligence has the power to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor.”

 

CM Devendra Fadnavis also said that Artificial Intelligence would also help in sustainable farming and agriculture in Maharashtra. AI clusters have the potential to create 230 million jobs in the country by 2025.

 

He said Maharashtra was the first state in the country to come out with a cloud policy enabling the government to shift its operations to the cloud and take advantage of cloud computing. Amongst core areas where the state government wants to put AI to use includes agriculture, health, home, revenue and social justice.

Explaining the benefits of inducing Artificial Intelligence the Chief Minister said, “AI in agriculture will help farmers to intensify and increase sowing to reap higher dividends. From crop patterns to soil health, land topography, satellite or drone images would equip farmers with assured agriculture practices.”

AI application in the home department would help in improved CCTV and detection of criminals using face detection algorithms, he said.

AI will also prove fruitful in checking tax evasion and fraud. In the field of social justice, tackling problems related to disabilities, speech synthesis and transcription for the deaf are amongst aspects where AI will be explored, he said.