Maharashtra CM honored with Outstanding Leadership award in Washington
Mumbai, June 15: The ‘Outstanding Leadership’ of Maharashtra that has initiated a new era of development received a rare honour on a foreign land. Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis was honoured jointly by Georgetown University, India Initiative, and Centre for International Studies at Washington with ‘Outstanding Leadership in Development’ award, an official release said.
The World Bank has shown its willingness to extend financial cooperation to major projects and the Ford Mobility has evinced interest in investing in the Centre of Excellence for integrated transport system.
Dignitaries from various fields were present at this function held in the US Capital on Friday. The Chief Minister while replying to the felicitation narrated the success story of transformation in the state. Dedicating this award to the people of Maharashtra, Fadanvis said that their journey began, when the State was in extreme drought situation. We realise that water conservation would be the best solution to overcome drought and with this view we undertook the “Jal Yukta Shivar” scheme for water conservation and implemented the same vigorously and effectively.
Increasing public participation was the greatest success of this campaign that made villages free of drought changing their economics. People, not only offered their labour and money but also understood the science of water, which was more important, he added.
We created one vision document for the people of Maharashtra, before elections and most of the promises were completed while some others are under implementation, the Chief Minister said. We are implementing new campaigns to give a new direction to farming and rural economy, he added. Villages are given digital connectivity while providing road network. The Nagpur-Mumbai Samruddhi Corridor is expected to create logistics and agro-processing projects in 24 districts of the state. Besides many other initiatives like war room for coordinating all the projects are launched, Fadanvis stated.
Earlier MoU was signed between MMRDA and Ford for Common Mobility Solution on 24th November 2017 and scoping assessment for a common mobility solution for commuters across multiple modes of transport such as buses, trains, taxis, autos, metro etc. is being done by them.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis met Clay Neslar Vice-President of Global Sustainability and Industry initiatives at Johnson Controls Global Sustaibanility and Industry Initiative. Clay Neslar expressed desire to invest in intelligent traffic control systems in India.
World Bank to assist in creating Multi-Modal Corridor: The World Bank has assured cooperation in creating Multi Modal Transport Corridor in Mumbai Corporation area besides, helping in rural livelihood projects, solar energy grid, and drought mitigation. The decision to this effect was taken at a meeting between World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva and Chief Minister Fadanvis at Washington.
Important discussion regarding financial cooperation for major projects was held at this meeting. There was a positive response from World Bank for Multimodal Transport Corridor in MMR and rural livelihood projects. Similarly cooperation will be extended to solar energy grid, drought mitigation and other projects. World Bank CEO appreciated Maharashtra’s model of consent driven land acquisition.
CM’s dialogue at Business Forum: The Chief Minister was present at the Business Forum organised by US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF). Interacting with the participants Fadanvis talked about Maharashtra’s growth story and infra-led growth model and how State has attracted over 47% FDI in Maharashtra and on ongoing infra projects of Navi Mumbai International Airport, Nagpur-Mumbai Samruddhi Corridor, etc. He also spoke on the newly announced FinTech policy and how Mumbai is growing as FinTech capital in sync with Industry 4.0.
While answering various questions from leading industry leaders Chief Minister Fadnavis said, we are stressing more on skill education of our youth, engineering colleges and ITIs are taking hard efforts to train youth in sync with industries.
Indian Ambassador to the US Navtej Sarna, USISPF Chairman and CEO Mukesh Aaghi, CM’s additional Chief Secretary Pravin Pardeshi, Principal Secretary of IT Department S V R Sriniwas, MIDC CEO Sanjay Sethi and representatives of leading American companies were present at the Business Forum.