CM Devendra Fadnavis launches 'new Maharashtra' initiative

MUMBAI: Taking a leaf from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's concept of a ‘New India', chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has launched an initiative to lay the foundation of a ‘new Maharastra’ on Monday.

The event called ‘Transform Maharashtra’ was organized by an NGO in association with the state government, the event was aimed at increasing the participation of youth in governance and also seek solutions to 11 critical challenges faced by the state like economic, education, and agriculture sectors.

More than 4,500 college students attended the program at

National Sports Club of India

(NSCI) in Worli, in which 11 teams were shortlisted by a panel of experts for their solutions to solve several problems like corruption, drought and citizen participation in governance.

Fadnavis announced several initiatives like building toilets at every interval in the city and forming a committee to look into the suggestions presented by the students. The event was attended by eminent people like industrialist Ratan Tata, Western command head of the Indian army Major General Anuj Mathur, and Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar.

“Several good ideas have been generated at this event and to take them forward a committee headed by a cabinet minister will be formed. This is just the beginning, we would like more participation of youth in our policy making process,’ said Fadnavis.

A student of VIT's PVP College of Architecture, Pune Prithviraj Nimbalkar's solution was selected for the Theme - 'Invisible Citizens: Empowering the urban poor' told TOI that, "The interaction session was good, as it was a very professional platform and we got to interact with the CM directly and learnt a lot of things from other presentations."