Nagpur.
The Vidarbha Economic Development Council (VED) held its 20th Annual General Meeting on 13th June 2015. This being an election year, a new team was elected for a 2-year tenure and Vilas Kale, IPP, conducted the election proceedings. The Office-Bearers elected were – President – Devendra Parekh, Vice-Presidents – Rina Sinha, Shivkumar Rao, Vinita Mathur, Secretary-General: Rahul Upganlawar, Treasurer: Narayan Gupta, Joint-Secretaries: Atul Tajpuriya, Nitin Ronghe, Pradeep Maheshwari and IPP: Vilas Kale.
The new Executive Committee Members elected were Anil Nair, C. Padgilwar, CA Anil Rathi, Dinesh Naidu, Dr. D.G. Garway, Jagmohan Sethi, Navin Malewar, Nitin Ronghe, Pankaj Mahajan, Parag Paranjpe, Pramod Pampatwar, Sudhir Ghike, Sushil Fatepuria & Vinita Bahri.
D. Parekh further informed about the forthcoming 4th IT event with NASSCOM, supported by MADC, on IT in MIHAN, sometime in Dec. 2015, the dates to be decided by the CM as he would be required to participate in the conference. Other proposed events were on Pharma, Logistics & Infrastructure, Tourism Park.
D. Parekh invited suggestions from the members. Mr. C. Padgilwar informed that there was no initiation by the State Govt. on the Terminal Market project which should be expedited for the benefit of farmers. Also, that the horticultural train should have Nagpur on its route. J. Sethi suggested that a tourist bus for east and west Nagpur should be facilitated.
Dr. Garway suggested that practical and meaningful solution to prevent farmers’ suicides should be adopted which were being done by organisations, one in Amravati and another in Chhattisgarh. He stressed that the Centre & State Govts. have good schemes but improper networking. P. Maheshwari informed about the petroleum refinery which VED was trying to set up in Gondia should be established. He also suggested easing of road congestion of Nagpur by setting up of an A/C bus terminal which could be approached from the station directly by a bridge. Anuja Sharma suggested the establishing of an exhibition centre which D. Parekh informed was also one of VED’s long-standing demands and was being looked into.
Vilas Kale lauded VED saying it was a great organization for personal development on a large scale on the parameters of economic development, that it was very intellectually stimulating where one could incubate one’s ideas for VED to push forward but that it should never be for self-interest. He reiterated the President’s stand saying that no time could be better than this considering the current political scenario and equation. VED hopes food work would be achieved. Participation and membership by the citizens are invited.
