Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde emphasized recently that the State will be contributing one trillion dollars towards the nation’s commitment of a five-trillion-dollar economy, and the State has established the “Maharashtra Institution for Transformation” (MAITRI) on the lines of Niti Aayog.
Shinde was expressing Maharashtra’s commitment towards making the concept of “ViksitBharat@2047” a reality, while speaking at the 9th meeting of the Governing Council of Niti Aayog at the Ashok Mandap in Rashtrapati Bhavan, which was presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Describing Maharashtra’s GDP development rate at 8.7% with growth rate set for 15%, he said Maharashtra is the “first” State in India to announce its agriculture produce export policy, while also finalising 72 “One District, One Product.”
Urging the Prime Minister to consider the price policy for procurement of onion for buffer stock under the price stabilization fund (PSF) scheme, Shinde said Maharashtra is establishing an ‘Onion Mahabank’ that will be based on nuclear technology to help increase the ‘shelflife’ of onion and its storage capacity to 10 lakh tonnes.
The coming five years will witness 25 lakh hectares of land being brought under natural farming in implementation of the Dr Punjabrao Deshmukh natural farming campaign, he said.
The last two years witnessed Maharashtra signing MOUs for investment of Rs 5 lakh crore during the World Economic Forum in Davos, and three lakh jobs would be generated due to these agreements, he said.
With 46 lakh registered units contributing 18% of industrial produce, Maharashtra is ahead in MSME and 72 manufacturers across 36 districts have been selected under ODOP, the Chief minister said while noting that 30% FDI of the nation has been attracted towards Maharashtra and 18,000 ‘Start-ups’ have been successfully registered in the State.
Shinde said Maharashtra will initiate a new policy of housing provision for ‘Senior Citizens,’ besides efforts being made on all GIF-based urban development schemes to ensure their transparency and acceleration.
While a ‘Rs 1.25-lakh crore’, 390-kms-long ‘Metro’ route is under construction in Metropolitan Mumbai, metro route construction work is also underway in Nagpur and Pune, he said adding that big road projects are going on with the ‘Konkan Coastal Road’ and ‘Konkan Green Field Expressway’ likely to be ‘milestones’ in the development of the Konkan Region.
Maharashtra is also the first State to announce the ‘Green Hydrogen’ policy in which investment of Rs 2.11 lakh crore is expected for manufacturing 910 KTPA Green Hydrogen.
While UNESCO has listed as ‘World Heritage’ 12 historical forts of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj era including Shivneri, Raigad and Pratapgadh, State Government efforts were on to add Pandharpur Wari Yatra, Dahihandi and Ganeshotsav festival to this list, Shinde added.
