Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, announced a 25-year roadmap for State’s energy sector. While speaking to mediapersons at Patrakar Club of Nagpur, on Wednesday, Fadnavis revealed, “The energy sector is very important and we have prepared a comprehensive roadmap for the next 25 years. Houses provided to the poor under various Government schemes would soon operate on solar energy, eliminating electricity bills for beneficiaries. In the next two to three years, efforts will also be made to reduce electricity tariffs.” The Chief Minister, who also holds the the Energy portfolio, expressed the Government’s intent to reduce electricity tariffs within the next two to three years. Fadnavis highlighted the importance of expediting the completion of pending projects, particularly in the irrigation sector, which aligns with the broader goal of improving infrastructure and quality of life for residents of Maharashtra. Further giving a strong message, Fadnavis said that tracing the digital footprint and reaching people who forwarded objectionable messages on social media was now possible.

 

He called upon people to beware of blind forwarding of inflammatory messages as they could be made co-accused in the case. The CM claimed that there had been two recent incidents of doctoring of videos and their circulation on social media to create a false narrative, drawing the attention of the State Government towards this growing problem. One of these videos was of Union Home Minister Amit Shah speaking in the Parliament and the other of of CM Devendra Fadnavis himself, speaking in the State Assembly. Responding to this, Fadnavis said, “My speech in the Assembly where I said that Naxalites did not believe in the country’s Constitution was doctored/edited in such a way that it appeared as if I am saying that I do not believe in the Constitution. Cyber crimes are are also on the rise. To tackle this, we are conducting cyber awareness campaign.

 

Maharashtra has the biggest cyber security platform in the country. We have best digital tools. If somebody distorts a video and forwards it then we have the technology through which we can trace its footprint. We can now trace those who forward it.” He appealed to people not to forward inflammatory messages as they could be made co-accused. Reflecting on his alliance’s massive win Fadnavis said,“With people’s mandate, we (Mahayuti) won the State Assembly election in a splendid manner. The Bharatiya Janata Party, too, registered a great victory. But now, people’s expectations from us have also gone up. In the next five years, fulfilling those expectations will be our biggest challenge,” said the new Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis. He further said, “BJP has not won these many seats in of the past Assembly polls in Maharashtra. Now, people are expecting much more from us. We aim for balanced development and balanced growth. We have to ensure infrastructural growth as well as social welfare,” he said. “In the past, there were times when we had Chief Ministers from Western Maharashtra and Vidarbha got step-motherly treatment from them.

 

So when I became the Chief Minister in 2014, people of Western Maharashtra felt I would ignore them. But I could win their trust as I saw to it that development is inclusive,” explained Fadnavis. Talking about print media he said, “The policy of print media in State has become old. It is needed to be changed. We are contemplating to frame new policy for print media. Similarly we will also introduce proper framework for digital media too.” Talking about illegal tree cutting he said, “We will not tolerate illegal tree cutting and strict action will be taken against those involved. In some cases trees are cut for road widening or for some development. But if one tree is cut then trees should also be planted. We will monitor this strictly and see to it whether those many trees are planted or not,” Fadnavis assured. State BJP President and Revenue Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule, MLAs Krishna Khopde, Mohan Mate, Pravin Datke, ex-MLA Sudhir Parve and others were present at the press meet.