Prime Minister Narendra Modi's three-day visit to Israel is expected to give a boost in a big way for Israel's cooperation and involvement in Maharashtra. The sectors being explored for joint cooperation are agriculture, water supply, recycling, smart mobility, smart city development, skill development, innovation and incubation, and start-up.
Maharashtra also hopes to benefit from the Israel government's move to set up a special corpus of Rs 400 crore which could support the Indian and Israeli companies to participate in such projects. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had, during his visit to Israel, in April 2015, initiated a dialogue to consolidate ties between the two governments.
Pravin Pardeshi, Additional Chief Secretary in the CM's office, told DNA, "Israeli agency Jetro and our agriculture department are closely working in Yavatmal district to develop a Centre of Excellence for family farming and irrigation based on the Israel model of Moshav. The water will be sourced from the Bembla Dam and supplied through closed pipelines and drip irrigation for this project."
"In addition, Israel will also help the state to develop a water grid in the Marathwada region," he said. The Tel Aviv University and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have joined hands to start an incubator, coined as 'Capsula', which will work in the areas of smart mobility and alternate fuels instead of hydrocarbon fuel. Pune-based Pinnacle Industries has come forward to set up a Capsula in the College of Engineering, Pune.
This initiative will help Israeli startups and companies to develop suitable technology for the Indian market conditions.
Tel Aviv is also helping the Thane Municipal Corporation to develop a platform called Digi-Thane as a part of the Centre's Smart City development project. The platform will enable the citizens' to participate in the functioning of the Thane civic body.
David Akov, Israel Consul General in Mumbai said, "Israel and Maharashtra can cooperate by using Israel's expertise in drip irrigation, fertigation (fertilizer-irrigation), water management technology and building comprehensive water grids in arid areas. Also, our technology can be utilised to recycle waste water and use them for industrial and agricultural use in Maharashtra. We believe that the challenges in Maharashtra and Israel are very similar and the solution can also be similar, too. Israel's experience can also be used in areas where there is agricultural distress through holistic approach."
Akov said that Israel has already established four Centres of Excellence where experts share their knowledge with the trainers and farmers in a central training facility. "We hope that the next phase can be of using Israeli management methods to train farmers through integrated agricultural and regional development model on their own land," he added.
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