Current Affairs 9th December 2018

Current Affairs 9th December 2018 - Important Points

• India Water Impact Summit 2018 held in New Delhi
• World Bank assisted project SMART launched in Maharashtra

Current Affairs 9th December 2018 - Details

India Water Impact Summit 2018 held in New Delhi

The India Water Impact Summit-2018 was organised in New Delhi. It was mutually organized by National Mission for Clean Ganga and Centre for Ganga River Basin Management and Studies.

Important Points

India Water Impact Summit is yearly event where shareholders get together to deliberate, debate and develop model solutions for few of biggest water related problems in the nation. The discussions current year were on rejuvenation of Ganga River Basin. There was also multi-nation dialogue on subject highlighting technological innovations, research, policy outlines and funding models from India and overseas.

Large number of Indian Central Government Ministries and all significant decision makers responsible for delivering rejuvenation of Ganga were also participated at Summit. About 200 domestic and international contestants from approximately 15 nations and above 50 Central, State and Municipal Government representatives were present in the summit.

There were also sessions on afforestation and biodiversity, urban river or water management tactics, making global ecosystem for financing Ganga Rejuvenation Program and tapping into global capital markets for long term project finance.

The summit focused on three key aspects:

• Spotlight on 5 states: Uttarakhand, UP, West Bengal, Delhi and Bihar. Its aim was to present efforts and works going on within the respective states.
• Ganga Financing Forum: It was introductory forum that brought number of institutions to common knowledge, information & partnership platform. It took together financial institutions as well as investors interested in Namami Gange programs.
• Technology and Innovation: It was pilot program intended at providing opportunity to technology & innovation organisations from worldwide to demonstrate their solutions for addressing problems prevalent in river basin.

World Bank assisted project SMART launched in Maharashtra

Maharashtra Government has released World Bank supported State of Maharashtra’s Agribusiness and Rural Transformation- SMART Project to transform rural Maharashtra. This project goals to revamp agricultural value chains, with special emphasis on marginal farmers across 1,000 villages. This move is in line with Union Government’s step towards doubling-folding farmers’ income by 2022.  The launch of project which was followed by signing of 50 MoUs among big corporates and farmers producer groups.

State of Maharashtra’s Agribusiness and Rural Transformation (SMART) Project

The aim of project is to generate and support value chains in post-harvest segments of agriculture, facilitate agribusiness investment, stimulate SMEs within the value chain. It will also back resilient agriculture production systems, enlarge access to new & organised markets for producers and enhance private sector participation in the agribusiness.

The project will be executed in 10,000 villages of total 40,913 villages in states with an aim to achieve sustainable farming within the next 3 years. It will cover almost 1/4 of Maharashtra. Its emphasis is on villages which are reeling under worst agriculture crisis compounded by deficiency of infrastructure and assured value chains to channelize farm products.

The project will be applied in 10,000 villages comprising 10,000 Gram panchayats which were nominated by state government based on multiple parameters of socio-economic backwardness in terms of development & growth.

Significance

The project is huge step towards revolution of rural economy and empowerment of farmers & also sustainable agriculture through public-private partnership model. It pursues to sure higher production of crops and make robust market mechanism to enable farmers to reap greater remunerations for the yield.