New Delhi: A two-day Regional Editors’ Conference for Southern States organized by Press Information Bureau will be inaugurated by Minister for Information and Broadcasting Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu at Chennai tomorrow. The two day conference will disucss the policies and initiatives of key Ministries such as Urban Development, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, Information and Broadcasting, Road Transport and Shipping, Commerce and Trade, Information and Communication Technology and Home Affairs. The participants will be apprised of the key programs and roadmap for the future pertaining to flagship schemes.
Around 80 senior media persons from Andhra Pradesh, Telengana, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Union Terretories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry will be participating in the Conference organaised by the Press Information Bureau.
Following the inaugural session by the Urban Development Minister, the conference will be addressed by the Union Minister for Law and Justice and Information & Communication Technology Shri. Ravi Shankar Prasad. The focus of deliberations during this session will be on the Information Technology Hub connecting Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kochi. The Editors will be informed of the ambitious project of the Union government to spread the IT network to rural areas and its plans to link it to citizen services of Union and State Governments.
The afternoon session will be dedicated to discussions on Disaster Management. The efforts of the Disaster Management apparatus of the government since Chennai Flood in December 2015 and other climate change related calamities that have taken place in the region will be the highlight of the session.
The session on Urban Development will be addressed by Shri. Venkaiah Naidu who will apprise the Editors on the initiatives of the Ministry with specific reference to Smart Cities project across the country, issues related to the urbanization challenges in specific cities such as Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kochi and the Metro Rail development plans in Kochi and Hyderabad.
Shri. Rajive Kumar, Secretary Shipping and Shri. Raghav Chandra, Chairman National Highways Authority of India will brief the Conference on the infrastructure projects in the Southern states. These five states have ambitious programmes of improving the road network which when fully implemented would speed up the overall development of the region giving fillip to the economy. Further this region forms part of the Sagar Mala plan of the Union Government with its vast coast line and numerous ports catering to the industries in the vast hinterland of the peninsulas.
The afternoon session on the second day will be addressed by Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Commerce and Industry, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, who will speak on new iniatives that seeks to push Make In India project. The Mnister will highlight governemnt’s efforts to give a filip to automobiles, textiles, spice products and services – the sectors which are performing well in the southern states, constitute major exports from the region and provide employment to a large sections of the population.
Press Information Bureau had successfully hosted a Social Editors’ Conference in Jaipur earlier this year.
