Mumbai | Jul 13, 2016: Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis Tuesday announced the setting up of a full-fledged mining university in home region Vidarbha, which has the country’s riches mines and minerals.
At St Petersburg, Fadnavis held a series of meetings with government officials and representatives from the Russian industries to explore the mines and metallurgy sectors.
The CM met Prof Vladimir Litvinenko, rector of St Petersburg Mining University and signed an MoU to set up a collaborative mining university in Nagpur. The entire stretch along the districts of Nagpur, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli in Vidarbha has huge resources.
With the Centre paving the way for major policy reforms in the mining sector, the state government has adopted the auction policy to open up the mining sector to private players — with a rider that 30 per cent of the funds raised would be invested for socio-economic development of the tribal belt in Vidarbha.
Fadnavis has decided to invite Russian companies to Vidarbha as part of the initiative to tap foreign direct investments along with collaboration for mutual partnership in exchange of technology and expertise in the mining and metallurgy sectors.
The Maharashtra government and St Petersburg Mining University also intend to collaborate with power generation utility MAHAGENCO to modernise coal energy conversion.
The St Petersburg university was established in 1773 to prepare highly qualified specialists for mining and metallurgical production.
Another key area being pursued in Russia relates to investments in defence sector, which has opened up for 100 per cent FDI. Defence manufacturing parks in Nagpur and Nashik, with support from a Russian conglomeration of companies, has been given a nod.
Earlier, Fadnavis met Konstantin Bocharov, General Director, Concern Radio-Electronic Technologies (KRET).
KRET plans to set up a fund to finance Indian offset requirements for servicing, avionics spare parts, designated areas of defense manufacturing parks.
KRET is a subsidiary of Rostec Russia, which has under its umbrella more than 95 organisations engaged in development and production of military and civil radio-electronic products.
Describing St Petersburg as a beautify city, Fadnavis said, “ It was a day marked with meaningful important meetings and business collaborations and lot of learning.”
An MoU was also signed between the St Petersburg’s famous Hermitage Museum and the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to promote art, culture and heritage. The St Petersburg museum houses more than 30 lakh rarest of rare artifacts.
The chief minister said, “We are committed towards building a bond towards preservation and promotion of art, culture and heritage.”
He said, “The MoU between Hermitage and Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is not just another document. It is our resolve to preserve the art and culture as we have a lot to learn from our past history.”
“We are in an era where machines also have artificial intelligence. What separate machines from man is the art and culture. It makes us more human. I believe history, art and culture need a lot of preservation because we can learn a lot from our past,” he added.
“I feel with this MoU, we will be able to restore and conserve art and culture and rich heritage which we have in India and specially in Maharashtra. We would like to organise more exhibitions, training and restoration works so that we take the rich heritage to next level,” he said.
(Source: http://indianexpress.com/)