The first day of the 48th Conference of Governors/Lt Governors at Rashtrapati Bhavan concluded today (October 12, 2017) with presentations and a discussion on the themes of ‘Higher Education in States’ and ‘Skill Development and Entrepreneurship - Making Youth Employable’.  The Minister of HRD, Shri Prakash Javadekar, and Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, made presentations covering the vision and roadmap for addressing the issues on the agenda.  Governors also gave their feedback and views, and cited experiences from their States. 

 

The agenda of the Conference has been shaped by the over-arching national mission to achieve ‘New India-2022’.  India will complete 75 years of Independence in 2022. The Union Government has developed a vision for ‘New India-2022’ that will require initiatives in education and skill building, enhancing educational, health and sanitation capacities of citizens, and upgrading infrastructure. Also envisaged is better access to and quality of public services. 

 

Twenty-seven Governors and three Lt. Governors of States and Union Territories are participating in the Conference. The Administrators of the UTs of Dadra and Nagar Haveli & Daman and Diu as well as of Lakshadweep are special invitees. The Vice-President, the Prime Minister, Minister for Home Affairs and other Union Ministers also participated in the Conference today.

 

Earlier in the day, in his opening remarks at the Conference, President Ram Nath Kovind said that it is essential to link youth with the process of nation building. Special attention needs to be paid to higher education and skill development at the level of States.  Addressing the participants, the President emphasised the need to trust citizens. He gave the examples of self-attestation of documents by individuals and the easier mechanism for obtaining a passport that is in place now, urging States to take forward this philosophy of trusting the citizen.

 

The President said that in the context of development of each part of the country, it was crucial to have a special focus on tribal and indigenous communities in the Fifth and Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. The President said the dream of a developed India will be realised only when every State develops.

 

Following the President, the Doyen of Governors or the senior most Governor at the Conference, Shri E.S.L. Narasimhan, Governor of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, spoke on the gamut of developmental challenges, ranging from energy and technology to health and sustainable development.

 

The first session was addressed by the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi. Referring to the mission of achieving New India by 2022, the Prime Minister emphasised that this can be achieved only with widespread popular participation. He said that it is important to encourage innovation not just in terms of new technology but also finding solutions to long-standing problems. He encouraged Governors to interact at length with students and teachers. He said universities should be centres of innovation. He suggested Governors could encourage their States and especially the youth and the university network to adopt one sport (other than cricket) in which the State had potential and attempt to build excellence in it. 

 

A presentation was made by Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Vice-Chairman of Niti Aayog on the elements of New India-2022. He said that the focus would be on a clean, healthy and safe India, with new benchmarks of governance, greater transparency and higher accountability.

 

In the pre-lunch session, deliberations were held in two breakaway groups. The first group, deliberating on the topic ‘Infrastructure for New India-2022’, had the following participants:-

 

Governors of States

·         Shri E.S.L. Narasimhan, Governor of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana

·         Shri S. C. Jamir, Governor of Odisha

·         Dr. K. K. Paul, Governor of Uttarakhand

·         Shri Shriniwas Dadasaheb Patil, Governor of Sikkim

·         Shri Keshari Nath Tripathi, Governor of West Bengal

·         Shri Balramji Dass Tandon, Governor of Chhattisgarh

·         Shri Kalyan Singh, Governor of Rajasthan

·         Shri Tathagata Roy, Governor of Tripura

·         Dr. Najma A. Heptulla, Governor of Manipur

·         Shri Banwarilal Purohit, Governor of Tamil Nadu

·         Shri V. P. Singh Badnore, Governor of Punjab and Administrator of Union Territory of Chandigarh

·         Shri Satya Pal Malik, Governor of Bihar

·         Prof. Jagdish Mukhi, Governor of Assam

 

Union Ministers

·         Shri Rajnath Singh, Minister of Home Affairs

·         Shri Nitin Jairam Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Highways; Minister of Shipping; Minister of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation

·         Shri Piyush Goyal, Minister of Railways and Minister of Coal

·         Dr. Jitendra Singh, Minster of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region; Minster of State in the Prime Minister’s Office; Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pension; Minister of State in the Department of Atomic Energy; and Minster or State in the Department of Space

·         Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs

NITI Aayog

·         Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog

Lt. Governors of Union Territories

·         Shri Anil Baijal, Lt. Governor of Delhi

·         Admiral (Retd.) Devendra Kumar Joshi, PVSM, AVSM, YSM, NM, VSM, Lt. Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Administrator of Union Territory (Special invitee)

·         Shri Praful Patel, Administrator of Union Territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli & Daman and Diu

 

The second group, deliberating on the subject ‘Public Services for New India-2022’, comprised:-

 

Governors of States

·         Shri N. N. Vohra, Governor of Jammu & Kashmir

·         Lt. General (Retd.) Nirbhay Sharma, Governor of Mizoram

·         Shri Om Prakash Kohli, Governor of Gujarat with additional charge of Madhya Pradesh

·         Shri Padmanabha Balakrishna Achary, Governor of Nagaland

·         Shri Ram Naik, Governor of Uttar Pradesh

·         Shri Kaptan Singh Solanki, Governor of Haryana

·         Shri Chennamaneni Vidyasagar Rao, Governor of Maharashtra

·         Smt. Mridula Sinha, Governor of Goa

·         Shri Vajubhai Rudabhai Vala, Governor of Karnataka

·         Shri Justice (Retd.) Palanisamy Sathasivam, Governor of Kerala

·         Smt. Droupadi Murmu, Governor of Jharkhand

·         Acharya Devvrat, Governor of Himachal Pradesh

·         Brig. (Dr.) B.D. Mishra (Retd.), Governor of Arunachal Pradesh

·         Shri Ganga Prasad, Governor of Meghalaya

 

Union Ministers

·         Shri Rajnath Singh, Minister of Home Affairs

·         Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Law & Justice and Minister of Electronic and Information Technology

·         Shri Jagat Prakash Nadda, Minister of Health and Family Welfare

·         Shri Radha Mohan Singh, Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare

·         Shri Prakash Javadekar, Minister of Human Resource Development

·         Shri Dharmndra Pradhan, Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship

 

NITI Aayog

·         Shri Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog

 

Lt. Governors of Union Territories

·         Dr. Kiran Bedi, Lt. Governor of Puducherry

 

Administrator of Union Territory (Special invitee)

·         Shri Farooq Khan, Administrator of Union Territories of Lakshadweep

 

Tomorrow (October 13, 2017), in the third session of the Conference, Governors will make short interventions on issues pertaining to their respective States/Union Territories.  In the concluding session, a brief report on the deliberations will be presented by the respective conveners. 

 

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